(WGAw President Patric M. Verrone released the following statement a short time ago)

December 13, 2007

To My Fellow Members:

The AMPTP and each of its member companies have a legal obligation to bargain in good faith with the WGA. Their unilateral walkout from negotiations last Friday and their on-going refusal to bargain is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. Therefore the WGA today filed Unfair Labor Practice charges against the AMPTP with the National Labor Relations Board.

The DGA’s announcement today that it may begin negotiations with the AMPTP in January in no way relieves the AMPTP of their legal obligation to negotiate with us. The only legal way for the AMPTP to remedy the Unfair Labor Practice charge we have filed is to return to the bargaining table.

For those of you who missed this news, here is the announcement from Friday about bargaining with individual companies. Since the AMPTP has so many competing agendas and can't reach consensus, perhaps its individual members will consider their own self-interest and negotiate their own deals.

A Message to the WGA Membership from its Negotiating Committee

December 16, 2007

Dear Writers Guild of America Members,

I am writing to you on behalf of 120,000 proud members of Screen Actors Guild who stand with you in solidarity as your strike continues. We believe that now more than ever, we must remain strong and even more committed to achieving our common objectives. We are proud to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with you and SAG will be there for as long as it takes.

Your fight is our fight. Our National Executive Director Doug Allen and I are working around the clock with Patric Verrone and David Young to coordinate our strike support efforts. I'm sure you have seen some of the thousands of Screen Actors Guild members who've been walking the picket lines in Los Angeles, New York and around the country for the last six weeks.

The following letter was written by Carlton Cuse and sent today to members of the WGA. His candor and honesty are deeply appreciated by all of us here at UH. The AMPTP is counting on us becoming more divided as time goes on. But we believe the opposite will happen -- is happening, right now. We are staying strong.

To my fellow WGA Members,

I want to clear up any misunderstanding about where I stand.

On November 16 I, regretably, was quoted by a Wall Street Journal reporter saying I was going to perform some of my non-writing, post-production duties on episodes of LOST to protect the show for the fans. However, I'm sure to the delight of the AMPTP, my statement became the story and gave the false impression that there was disunity among showrunners over the issues of this negotiation.

This was sent to membership Friday night, asking for patience as the WGA assesses the deal and moves foward with the AMPTP:

To Our Fellow Members,

As you know, the Directors Guild announced yesterday that it has reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. We are waiting for the full terms of the deal to be made available so that we can carefully analyze and evaluate the language and numbers.

This was sent today to WGA members from Presidents Verrone and Winship:

To Our Fellow Members:

On Tuesday, members of the Writers Guilds East and West voted by a 92.5% margin to lift the restraining order that was invoked on November 5th. The strike is over.

Writing can resume immediately. If you were employed when the strike began, you should plan to report to work on Wednesday. If you're not

A letter from WGA Board Members that was sent this afternoon to members, with even more detail on the corporations' proposal.

Fellow members:

There are a lot of rumors and questions floating around, and we’d like to address them.

HAVE NEGOTIATIONS BROKEN DOWN?
No.

DID OUR NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE ASK FOR A BREAK?
No.

THEN WHY THE FOUR DAY BREAK?
On Thursday, the studios and networks gave us some of their proposals, and said they needed more time to fashion the rest. Therefore talks were scheduled to resume on Tuesday.

THE COMPANIES SAY THEY ARE OFFERING US IS A $130 MILLION INCREASE. THE GUILD CALLS IT A ROLLBACK. WHY THE DISPARITY?

Patric Verrone and Michael Winship just sent this message to the membership. The WGA is determined to stay at the table until we have a deal. If the AMPTP wants to negotiate in good faith, and end the strike, we are at the table.

Dear Fellow Members,

Before we head into negotiations this morning, we want to give you an update on where we stand.

This was sent today by WGA Presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship to membership:

To Our Fellow Members,

While fully mindful of the continuing media blackout, we write you to address the rumors and reports that undoubtedly you have been hearing.

The facts: we are still in talks and do not yet have a contract. When and if a tentative agreement is reached, the first thing we will do is

This was sent to WGA members today, explaining some of the reasoning behind the Worldwide Pants deal.

To Our Fellow Members,

We are writing to let you know that have reached a contract with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company that puts his show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson back on the air with Guild writers. This agreement is a positive step forward in our effort

(The following was just sent to the membership from WGAw president, Patric Verrone and WGAe president, Michael Winship.)

To Our Fellow Members,

We have responded favorably to the invitation from the AMPTP to enter into informal talks that will help establish a reasonable basis for returning to negotiations. During this period, we have agreed to a complete news blackout. We are grateful for this

This was sent early this morning to membership. The delay in publishing the deal points, we've learned, was because the companies dragged their feet enshrining some of the final details in an attempt to renege on some of what they had promised. The last-minute fight to keep that from happening took until late last night.

To Our Fellow Members,

We have a tentative deal.

It is an agreement

This was sent today to WGA members from Presidents Verrone and Winship. Emphasis is mine -- because I think it's incredibly important. --LK

To Our Fellow Members,

As Negotiating Committee Chair John Bowman wrote you last night, we are continuing to negotiate the terms of a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. We anticipate that we will be able to present the terms of that agreement to you in

Statement from Chief Negotiator David Young and the WGA Negotiating Committee.

We have attempted to negotiate with the AMPTP companies since July. First they ignored our opening proposals. Then they told us we had to choose between their two horrible proposals. Then we removed DVDs from the table. Their response was to walk out of negotiations and tell the press that we were the ones who walked. Last week they presented us with another set of ultimatums. They didn’t even wait for a reply but broke off negotiations and walked out again.

There is a strategy at work here.

In any negotiation there are bottom line goals and “fringe” goals. The AMPTP wants to make the WGA reduce our demands to the bottom line so we’ll negotiate down from an acceptable deal to a bad deal If we do this, as we did with DVDs, you can be sure they would not hand us the deal we want. They would simply try to further wear us down.

To My Fellow Members,

This afternoon, the Directors Guild announced that it would commence formal negotiations with the AMPTP tomorrow. In a joint press release with the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guilds, West and East, wished the DGA well and offered our hope that they achieve a fair deal that incorporates principles that will benefits all creative artists. We further stated that, while

Steven Bradbury, who is Deputy Assistant Attorney General for OLC (there has not been an official AAG at OLC for some time), is testifying today before the House Intelligence Committee. Here's his written statement. Not much to speak of there, except to note that he will not discuss the CIA techniques that have been deemed legal or unlawful, other than a welcome suggestion that hypothermia ("extremes in temperature") is now proscribed, even under DOJ analysis. Bradbury confirms that DOJ (that is, AG Mukasey) continues to adhere to the legal analysis in the December 2004 OLC opinion, with its indefensible reading of the torture statute. Bradbury also confirms what others in the Administration have been saying recently -- namely, that the "enhanced techniques" are used not merely in proverbial (but in fact mythical) "ticking timebomb" situations, but instead whenever the method in question is deemed "necessary to obtain information on terrorist attack planning or the location of senior al Qaeda leadership."

This letter is from Phil Nutman & Jason Dolan. -JA

Dear fellow WGA members and supporters:

Further to previous discussions, we can now confirm that the Writers Guild of America members in Georgia have been formally invited to participate in next Monday's Martin Luther King Day parade and rally.

As this is the 40th anniversary of the King Day Parade, the Writers Guild of America is proud and

This letter was just sent out to SAG members by Doug Allen (Executive Director and Chief Negotiator) and Allen Rosenberg (President). Emphases in red are from us at UH -- LK.

Dear SAG Member:

Everyone hopes the WGA strike will end with a fair deal for the writers. There has been much speculation about the impact on the WGA strike of the tentative agreement between the Directors Guild of America

Something's very different on the picket line.

Since Thanksgiving, the energy on the picket lines has fallen off. One picketer was even seen reading a book while he walked the picket line.

It seems like only yesterday that we were chanting to stop trucks from crossing the picket line or "2-4-6-8, Why won't they negotiate." The turnout and the energy paid off. The AMPTP rejoined us at the negotiating table and that was great.

But now....we wait....in a news blackout.

Getting the agreement to restart the negotiations felt climactic, because so much energy had to be expended to get the AMPTP to do the right thing, but "restarting" the talks didn't mean "concluding" them.

This is the letter that was just sent to the membership:

AMPTP BREAKS OFF NEGOTIATIONS

Today, after three days of discussions, the AMPTP came back to us with a proposal that included a total rejection of our proposal on Internet streaming of December 3.

They are holding to their offer of a $250 fixed residual for unlimited one year streaming after a six-week window of free use. They still insist on the DVD rate for Internet downloads.

They refuse to cover original material made for new media.

The AMPTP walked away on Friday. The WGA never left the table.

The Guild has made itself crystal clear: Specific proposals have been detailed, compromises have been made, the leadership continues to be engaged in a constructive dialogue to quickly resolve the strike. The AMPTP is as clear about its position: You can't talk to writers because they're emotional and don't understand business.

With the AMPTP away from the table, the negotiation is playing out in the press. If you read Dave McNary in Variety today, there's only one answer to the impasse: the WGA has to accept the companies' demands and get back to work. The companies are too powerful, with their deep pockets and experienced PR resources. The writers' are too emotional, which is great when they're writing screenplays, but not good when you're engaged in a difficult labor negotiation.

Michael Winship, president of Writers Guild of America East, sent this message to East members today.

Fellow Members of the Writers Guild of America, East:

A very Happy New Year to you all. In spite of our current turmoil, I hope you’ve been able to find some time to enjoy and appreciate the holiday season with friends and loved ones.

I hit the wall the Friday before Christmas, momentarily

Here's the text of the AMPTP's "Joint Statement" on the front of their website. As frustrated as we all have been with the congloms -- 41 days after they walked out -- this invitation is very significant.

Nowhere in the invitation does anyone mention preconditions or thresholds for these informal talks. There are no demands here that we take "distributor's gross" off the table, for example -

It's just been announced that the WGA has made a deal with David Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants. This is part of the larger strategy of making deals with individual companies within the AMPTP.

There are strong feelings about this on both sides – people who think we should have done the deal, people who think we shouldn’t have. Here’s why I think the WGA made the right choice:

Some

Can this really be true?

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."
Shachtman's story on Wired suggests that there is some dispute about which blogs are actually being blocked. If any readers at Air Force bases have access to this blog, or know more about the policy, please let us know in the comments.

UPDATED: We're bringing the post from yesterday to the top of the page -- but we also wanted to let you know what's on the agenda for today.

We'll be updating frequently throughout the day as we get some answers to questions we all have -- where are the congloms getting their numbers? What are they based on? What really happened in the negotiating meeting? Why, after insisting that there was no way to do flat payments on internet use, did the companies suddenly completely shift their paradigm and tell us that actually, no, it was percentages they aren't willing to discuss?

We'll also be able to clarify what the WGA negotiating committee proposal numbers are, and confirm the ugly fact that all this could have been over weeks ago for less than the budget of doing PR for one theatrical release or fall tv show. As in, a lot less.

The strike is over. The WGA contract has been ratified. SAG and AFTRA are now center stage and there is still a lot of work to do before the town gets back to normal. At this moment it's useful to look back at our own history. There are lessons to be learned about how the process can move forward even against what seems like overwhelming odds.

There are many who labored behind the scenes to support the writers' strike. At United Hollywood we worked with people who put their energy on the line but wanted to stay off the media's radar. Not content to just talk a good game, these are members and supporters who knew that if they wanted to make a difference, they had to work at it.

One group in particular came of age during the early part of the strike: the writer-directors. Nicknamed the WD-40, forty writer-directors met to search for ways they could help facilitate the negotiation.

From the beginning of the strike, most journalists accepted the AMPTP's lead and described the DGA and WGA as antagonistic to one another. Nicholas Counter was frequently quoted in the trades as preferring the DGA as a negotiating partner. The writer-directors objected to that characterization and felt that the AMPTP was doing what it always did in positioning the Guilds against one another to diminish each union's power.

Responding to my post ("The Faces of the Strike") earlier today, Anonymous said what a lot of us have been thinking. I think it's worth reprinting in its entirety.

Anonymous said...

Not "some accountant in one of the AMPTP companies"...every single company has done extensive financial analysis on this situation, and it's what will drive all decisions made from the AMPTP side.

Business decisions from executive management are based almost exclusively on finances...and often short term finances over long- or medium-term finances.

AMPTP knows exactly when this strike will end.