8 of the 12 unions involved were in favor of the settlement that had been negotiated, and both Houses had veto-proof majorities. So with 2/3 of the unions saying ‘this is a good deal’, would you prefer Biden to look weak and ineffectual as his veto is overruled?
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Things don’t look good for the studios.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has hired a prominent Washington, D.C.-based crisis management firm to assist its messaging effort as the double actors and writers strike grinds on with no end in sight. The studios’ trade association has been under an unprecedented national spotlight in its four-decade history as the work stoppages lead to severe ripple-effect economic consequences.
The organization as well as the PR company, The Levinson Group, declined to comment. It’s led by namesake Molly Levinson, a former political director at CNN and CBS turned strategic adviser for corporate clients with reputational and risk concerns. She’s also known for her work on behalf of the restaurant Comet Ping Pong, countering “Pizzagate,” as well as the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in its campaign for pay equity.
[…]
Since the Writers Guild first walked in early May when it didn’t come to an agreement on a new labor contract, the AMPTP, its company members and especially their CEOs have found themselves villainized. The situation has worsened for management as workers have made their case on social media while the AMPTP has chosen to remain silent — except, of course, for step-in-it moments like Disney chief Bob Iger’s Sun Valley commentary, which provoked its own backlash.
Paying for a “crisis PR firm” to spin and justify why you can’t pay your actors and writers more… is pretty bad PR tbh. https://t.co/EB0GKFxqVg
— The Dyslexic DM 🎲 is playing BG3 (@DarkLordWaffles) August 26, 2023
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“Meanwhile” if we take “a closer look” at the studios it’s obvious they need some “corekshuns”.
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I miss Seth Meyers’ show most of all!
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I’m pro union. Sure, unions have all got their issues. Guess I’ll go cry in a bucket of pension money.
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Dyslexic DM’s right on the money there, especially given how much that PR firm likely charges.
$22b (before Amazon and Apple) income vs a $600M top-end ask. Apple alone could eat the entire industry’s cost increase without noticing.
The more that gets out, the worse the studios look. Just like the more things like ‘we want to keep this going until people start losing houses’ from studio execs go viral, the worse it is for them.
Honestly, they need to just give in, give the unions a fair set of contracts, and put this behind them.
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Unions are no more corrupt than the companies they work at are.
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And the story didn’t end last fall. The railroad unions recently achieved a breakthrough on paid days off and other hard fought issues, and they credited the Biden administration for playing the long game
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Fair enough. Any time you have a situation at the intersection of people, money, and power, you have the potential for corruption or abuse.
Doesn’t matter if it is a corporation, labor union, government agency, religious group, law enforcement body or media organ.
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Yup. By stepping in to say ‘ok, guys, we can’t have the economy crippled by a strike’, Biden put the freight companies in the position of ‘you owe us, and we’ve demonstrated we will step in if needed’. By opening the door to direct government intervention, things may get to where they’ll even eat the cost of upgrading to the electronic braking systems that would’ve stopped so many industrial rail accidents.
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In my travels around back in the day I came across a railroad crash test site somewhere in Ohio.
It was almost like a railroad track ski jump with a huge concrete block at the end. Didn’t get to watch it in operation though…shucks.
Some of them are, don’t kid yourself. Especially some of the bigger-market locals with effective monopolies. A friend of mine’s an electrician in Manhattan, and their union shop is just… ugh. The union has a history of working with contracting firms (with the individual members as subcontractors) on arranging jobs, and because of that, both the contracting firms and the union bosses (who are now like 3rd-generation members of the same family, because the original guy was the real deal, and his kids were solid, but in continuing the family legacy, built up basically a political machine inside the union that let the grandkids just be assholes and still hold onto power) got filthy fucking rich.
Now, because the contracting firms are viewed as basically the union leadership’s partners, union members are discouraged from getting their electrician’s licenses in NYC, which would mainly just give them the legal ability to go and take on work without subcontracting, and let them open their own businesses and hire subcontractors of their own. My friend’s still planning to get thier license, but they keep throwing roadblocks up and a bunch of ‘union rules say you need to do XYZ before applying for A’ bullshit.
And that’s before you get into the companies these contractors are doing work for (one of the projects my subcontracting friend has been working on is the new Hudson Square NYC HQ for Disney). Some unions do just absolutely suck, and a lot of the members don’t even see it.
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It should be noted that Warner Brothers announced earlier this week it is pushing back the release of Dune: Part Two and the Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
Legendary Pictures and Warners also pushed back Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire one month to April 12, 2024 (it previously was set to open on Dune’s new March 15 date).
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Yeah, the principle photography for Dune and GxK were done, as was the voice work for War, so they’re pushing the dates to stretch things about a bit and try to weather it all better.
Another example of the Democrats playing nice, pussyfooting around and not realizing the BIG opportunity presented by objective circumstances.
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Your pen-pal probably thinks that his expansive grasp of vapid cliches and smug assertions of nonsensical slogans elegantly destroys whatever attempt you made to educate him. The economic illiteracy of our citizens is a self-inflicted slow-rolling disaster.
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I’d have preferred him to raise holy hell, go to war with the scabs in the congress, call them out and dare to educate the citizenry about class differences with his example of standing up to the bullies. Joe is truly a nice guy. That’s the problem.
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So you’d prefer he get nothing done because he’d made enemies of his own caucus while trying to get things like the infrastructure package passed.
Brilliant.
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And what would that performative tantrum have accomplished, besides a brief feel-good glow?
President Biden helped railroad workers get sick time, a significant wage increase, and other benefits. You don’t get that by pissing in the pool.
A few years ago Nafta was amended, and then-House Speaker Pelosi took the draft and rewrote entire passages that dealt with enforcement of labor rights. It is because of those changes, borrowed from the aborted Trans-Pacific Partnership initiative axed by Trump, that we were able to deploy trade auditors and send inspectors down to Mexico a couple years ago and blow the whistle on a corrupt labor union conspiring with foreign automakers to suppress wages.
Instead of “changing hearts and minds,” we need to concentrate on changing the laws that make a difference. And to do that we need majorities.
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Card check, anyone? It just might happen.
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