I didn’t
think it would be possible for me to get angrier at SAG-AFTRA from walking away
from the bargaining table on Wednesday with the studios. The last twenty-four
hours have proven, yes, it was possible.
By the
way, if you ever had any doubt that any part of this strike had to do with the
rights of workers, the evils of corporate America and the overall structure of
how labor negotiates, let me assure you were right to have them. To coin a
phrase that was used in the baseball strike of 1994 that ended up wiping out
that year’s World Series, what is going on in Hollywood is a battle of millionaires
versus billionaires. And while it takes a lot of work to make you feel sympathy
for the latter in that scenario, SAG-AFTRA is making the impossible possible.
The head
of Netflix Ted Sarandos argued that they had presented the deal to SAG-AFTRA
but that they were demanding more money streaming. According to hm, SAG-AFTRA
essentially was demanding ‘a levy on every subscriber to the service”. The
figure that he mentioned was $800 million dollars, which even for a multi-billion
dollar corporation is substantial and for one such as Netflix, that as we know
has been deal with restructuring and stock drop throughout the last couple of
years, would hurt it substantially. Sarandos said that the WGA and DGA had been
fine without this part of it. (I’ll get to the WGA’s reaction in a minute.)
SAG-AFTRA
initially announced that this was a ridiculous exaggeration of events. This is
a barely passable defense - the kind
that you expect to her on one of the major cable news networks when a member of
one party defends its President against something they said or did. It’s done
to placate the base more than an acknowledgement of whether what they said
might be true or not. And earlier, the head of SAG-AFTRA blew it all to hell.
Fran
Drescher might have been considered the head of organized labor by so many on
the left before. When she gave her reaction to this, she gave a response that –
under any other circumstances and very much might still be – would be one of
those things that right-wing media would have a field day with when they like
to critique Hollywood or anyone on the left for being out of touch with
reality.
What did
she say? Did she tell the media that the deal the WGA accepted was not good
enough for SAG-AFTRA? Not exactly.
Did she
offer a blanket denial of anything Sarandos said? She should have.
Did she say
that they had not demanded a levy? No.
What she
said was that what they were asking for would only cost the average Netflix
subscriber 57 cents apiece more than what they were currently paying.
Let me
explain just how wrong-headed this statement is. It’s one thing for someone who
tries to unionize for McDonald’s or Starbucks to say something like: “they
could pay us more if they raised prices an average of a nickel on everything.”
To be clear, the representatives of those strikers would never be foolish to
say something like that. They know that while everyone supports organized labor
in theory, if you were to say how these increasing would affect the consumer,
they’d lose a lot of their support.
Second
of all, it shows complete obliviousness to what has been going on at streaming
in general and Netflix in particular. As I keep arguing over and over (and
apparently considering Drescher, must keep doing so) I can’t see how anyone
makes money long term when it comes to streaming. I’ve argued that the strikers
in Hollywood seem to be looking for money in these studios and streamers that I
don’t think exists. The recent problems that Netflix has been having the last
few years would seem to bare that out. Netflix has been cracking down on
password sharing over the last few years because people do not want to pay the
relatively low price Netflix subscribers have to per month. A 57 cent increase
for every subscriber might very well be the nail that causes many reluctant
subscribers to cancel their subscription altogether, which would further destabilize
the service. That Drescher seems to not
see $800 million as a lot of money is the kind of obliviousness that only those
who are wealthy or who work in a business involving the wealthy shows the
blindness of her cause.
Lastly
and perhaps most importantly Drescher has revealed at her core just how little
she thinks of the working class her union is supposed to be representing. An
extra 57 cents to the price of Netflix is nothing to her or any of the members
of her unions, even the rank and file extras. To the lower middle class, to
those working minimum wage, to those who have been on the picket lines in
health care until recently and the UAW, who
might not be able to afford a TV, let alone the extra cost for streaming, for
those who consider the service a luxury, the idea that this is nothing shows
the privilege of Drescher and all the members of her guild.
I have
little doubt Drescher thought that this statement was one to show how little it
would cost Netflix to grant their demands. Seen another way – and you don’t
have to twist your thinking that much – it shows that the people in Hollywood
don’t care who bears the cost for their labor as long as they get what they are
owed. Sometimes cable news will play a recording of a celebrity out of context
to shape their narrative. They wouldn’t have to here because in context
it sounds tone deaf. I could hear millions of Americans deciding never to cancel
their subscriptions if Netflix gave in or even offering support for the studios
in their position on line.
I’m
frankly expecting that in the not too distant future Drescher or someone at SAG-AFTRA
will have to walk back what she said. Because she broke one of the key rules of
labor negotiations: the only people who get hurt are the people you are
striking against. She basically handed
the studios a gift.
And I
think its worth noting that SAG-AFTRA may not have the full-throated support of
even their fellows guilds it thinks it does. Even prior to Drescher’s
bone-headed statement, the WGA reacted to this with a statement of support to
SAG-AFTRA. Or at least, that’s what it might have seemed to be. But as someone
very gifted at parsing words and someone who knows that the people who wrote
the statement are writers, at the end of
the day this statement was as close to a non-support statement as possible. All
it does is a quote of Sarandos statement about the WGA deal and says: “Sorry
Ted. Writer issues are not the same as actor issues.”
That’s not the full-throated statement of support it sounds like. In fact, you could read it as saying that the actors are taking a position that doesn’t gel with the ones that SAG-AFTRA is arguing. It could be seen as a nudge to the Actors Guild. “We were fine with this deal, why can’t you accept it so we can get back to work?” I have frankly heard more genuine defenses of politicians in sex scandals then the one I’ve heard the WGA make in this case.
I
mentioned the previous article in this series that the WGA might want to
consider pulling back on its support for SAG-AFTRA. Obviously they can’t do
that but it’s hard to look at this tweet and see this as anything but tepid at
best and at worst saying: “At least we got our deal before this happened.”
I can’t imagine any of them will say anything about Drescher’s quote if asked; maybe
they’ll just say something like: “we support our fellow union.” Honestly after
this they don’t deserve much more.
I always
had far less support for the actors than I did the writers in this strike and
you know from reading my articles I didn’t have much for them to begin with.
Drescher’s statement has made it very clear that all of this is not about some
battle for the future of organized labor but rather a simple cash grab and that
it will affect the consumer, no matter how little SAG-AFTRA seems to think it
will. Those who actually thought she
might be the face and voice of organized labor when this started might really
want to reconsider that now.
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