Hollywood studios are already proving they learned nothing from the writers’ strike

From the Los Angeles Times, a great column by Culture Critic Mary McNamara.

Welp, they did it again.

After months of self-righteous declarations about wanting to end the 100-day-long actors’ strike and get Hollywood, and all of the industries that support it, back to work, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has walked away from the negotiating table once more.

Negotiating members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio artists claimed to be shocked by an AMPTP-inflicted breakdown in talks, and perhaps they were. But they shouldn’t have been. For the trade organization, whose sole purpose is to represent the studios in contract negotiations with Hollywood unions, this is the favored move.

If they can’t control the conversation, they just pick up their marbles and go home. Where they will stay for as long as they feel like it.

And why not? Studio heads, including Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and NBCUniversal Studio Group Chairman Donna Langley, who joined the recent talks, may be concerned about how a continued strike will affect their shareholders and upcoming quarterly reports, but unlike the 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members, and the hundreds of thousands of other workers impacted by the strike, they’re still getting (very large) paychecks.

Read the entire column as McNamara provides a run-down of some of the “strategic moves” (???) the AMPT(C) has used for decades which did NOT work during the WGA strike. And here they are, pulling the same stunts again.

Have they learned nothing?

My sense was that once the WGA strike was settled, folks generally felt like the AMPTP would negotiate a deal quickly with SAG-AFTRA. After all, it’s the WGA who is know as the most strident and stubborn guild, not SAG … and certainly not the DGA.

But here we are, about a month after the WGA strike was settled and the AMPT(C) is back to its old tricks.

Meanwhile, the film and TV industry continues to suffer. Not the C-suite gang. But the workers.

Proof it would seem that when greed gets hold of your heart and soul …

It’s hard to find your humanity.

To read the L.A. Times column, go here.

To read the daily Go Into The Story coverage of the entire 2023 WGA strike, go here.

#SAGAFTRAstrong #1u