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« WGA Post-Strike Watch: News About Returning Shows
Oscars Boss: Despite WGA Obstacles, "The Show Is Going to Go On"
Gil Cates by Jesse Grant/WireImage.com
Though the Academy has yet to formally ask for — and thus has not yet officially been denied — the same sort of interim agreement with the WGA that is making the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Independent Spirit Awards possible, already organizers of the Oscars are being met with obstacles en route to the Feb. 24 kudoscast. Thus far, the WGA has nixed the use of clips from films or highlights from past Oscars telecasts, and forbidden the employ of striking scribes. This all comes on top of A-list stars possibly balking at showing up for the soiree.
But even amid such uncertainty, veteran Oscars producer Gil Cates remains bullish, saying to the New York Post, "The only thing I can tell you without any equivocation is the show is going to go on. That's absolutely for certain." As for who will or will not — host Jon Stewart included — cross a picket line to attend, he says, "It really depends on the individual artist's conscience." And we all know how abundant in supply those are in Hollywood.
POLL: Which side are you currently supporting in the strike? Vote here.
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Dec 26, 2007 4:48 PM
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I hope that all of the actors refuse to cross the picket line. I do not plan on watching either, unless this strike is resolved.
I encourage others to boycott watching the Oscars also!
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Dec 26, 2007 6:31 PM
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This is getting beyond ridiculous. As someone who started out fully supporting the WGA, I'm getting fed up with both sides. The WGA seems more intent on whining on blogs and YouTube than actually negotiating with good faith.
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Dec 26, 2007 6:39 PM
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I am so over this writer's strike. If people want to cross the pickett line I say go for it. I agreed with the writers in the beginning but now they are no better than the studios. What about the people who aren't writers? They need to work too, but the writers could care less about them.
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Dec 26, 2007 6:45 PM
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To the uninformed or just ignorant:
The studios walked out of negotiating weeks ago... and stated that they would ONLY return if the WGA renounced ALL their negotiating points.
You can only have a relationship if BOTH sided are willing to negotiate.
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Dec 26, 2007 7:37 PM
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I am also tired of the strike. I really do support the writers, but I feel that they aren't taking into consideration the other people that work in the industry. The writers need to try to come to some compromise with the studios soon!
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Dec 26, 2007 7:38 PM
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The writers are ready and willing to negotiate and compromise, and they have been for the weeks. It's the AMPTP that walked out on negotiations and it's the AMPTP that refuses to return to negotiation. I can't understand how anyone can find a way to blame the writers for such a situation. I find it amusing that so many people are saying that they supported the writers at the beginning but don't any longer. Basically, they're saying that they were willing to support the writers when it meant that there wouldn't be any negative consequences. Now that the strike is actually starting to have an effect, it must be evil. It's the AMPTP that is keeping everybody from working and they're still in possession of the brunt of the blame.
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Dec 26, 2007 8:01 PM
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You wonder how I could have supported the writers in the beginning but now that support is beginning to wane? I'll tell you how. I support the writers in their efforts to be compensated for new media including downloads, internet viewing and improved payments for DVDs. The reason the AMTP left the table was the WGA's insistence on including animation writers, reality producers and sympathy strikes in the deal. These issues have NOTHING to do with what we were told this strike is about and appear to be the WGA trying to increase their membership rather than actually do what they said this strike was about in the first place.
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Dec 26, 2007 8:39 PM
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First, answering the article's:
"It really depends on the individual artist's conscience." And we all know how abundant in supply those are in Hollywood.
Well, even if the individual artist doesn't have a conscience, I'm sure he/she understands that the writers are on strike FIRST ONLY BECAUSE THEIR CONTRACT WAS UP FIRST. The issues of DVD payments, jurisdiction and Internet, downloads and cell phone usuage are the same for actors as well as writers. It's not like they are getting paid for when their images are used or their mouths are moving any more than the writers are for putting the words in their mouths.
As for the person(s) who blindly doesn't want to support the writers now that they have other issues on the table... for your information, those issues were always on the table, you just didn't pay attention enough to look.
Reality writers want to be unionized... they want medical which in Hollywood comes from the unions, not the studios directly (do you get health insurance from your job?). They want pension, which comes from the unions, not from the studios directly (do you get some kind of pension plan from your job?). They want over-time pay for working overtime and not the sweatshop hours they have to work (do you work 14-16 hours a day without getting paid for overtime?) They want residuals too, for whatever reality shows rerun. That's why they are begging to become part of the union.
You'd learn that if you bothered to read the WGA site or any of the community blogs that support the writers. Of course, if you only read TVGuide's strike blog, you won't know anything about it, because they ignored the rally, preferring to put up only the information at the time about certain scabs going back to work.
The reason that the WGA has to make it an issue is that only writers can join the union... and even though the reality writers WRITE ON THOSE SUPPOSEDLY UNSCRIPTED SHOWS (gee, the studios are lying to you!), the studios refuse to call them writers... they are credited as segment producers and only acknowledged as such.
And the reason the studios don't want that to be a contract issue is that keeping the reality writers out of the union, means they can force the reality writers to keep producing reality shows they can use against the writers, instead of settling to bring back your favorite scripted shows. And of course, the studios don't want them in the union because then they'd have to give them a portion of the revenue (in terms of residuals to help pay for health insurance and pension) they now get to keep all of for reality reruns.
I don't know enough about the animation issue -- it's been around now for a few years. I do know that some animation shows are union and others aren't. The biggest travesty is that the very profitable Simpsons had writers underpaid, no health insurance, no pension, no residuals, no overtime for the first 9 (NINE) YEARS... and you know how much money that's raked in in reruns over the years. They finally managed to win the battle to get unionized and benefits, but it took them nine years to do it. So unless you are educated to know the facts about what's going on in that world, you shouldn't be throwing around an opinion that the WGA is being self-serving trying to help them.
As for sympathy strikes, I'm sorry to say that you are idiots for opposing the WGA on this. The reason you are stuck in a long protracted fight is because the studios managed to divide and conquer the unions in former years by getting no strike clauses written into the contracts and getting different expiration dates (probably by using the same hardball tactics and trash PR they are doing now). If all the unions could go out at once (in sympathy for each other), THIS STRIKE WOULD BE OVER NOW. Yes, you'd have blank screens, but probably only for a week or two. And then the studios would be forced to negotiate seriously because you'd have the public and the advertisers on their backs to make a settlement. So those of you who oppose the sympathy strike provision for the future are shooting yourselves in the foot for the future and making your own future misery. Or that of your children's... if say, it's another 20 years to the next strike.
And for those of you saying that the writers don't care about the others affected... must be nice to have a crystal ball that allows you to read people's minds. Since you seem to think you know what the writers think or who they do and do not care about. I invite you to read my mind now.
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Dec 26, 2007 9:16 PM
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I am also tired of the strike. I really do support the writers, but I feel that they aren't taking into consideration the other people that work in the industry.
Like who? The moguls? The execs? The AMPTP? GE? Sony? Rupert Murdoch?
The writers need to try to come to some compromise with the studios soon!
And why aren't you insisting that the studios come to a compromise with the writers? After all, it's the studios who won't negotiate... want everything their way... and want the creative talent to be good little slaves and slave away for scraps so they can sit at the lavish banquet table.
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Dec 26, 2007 9:26 PM
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I feel that the hairdressers, makup artists, camera operators, sound people, key grips, caterers etc... are the ones that are really getting shafted here! How are they supposed to support their familes when both the AMPTP and WGA are behaving like spoiled children?
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Dec 26, 2007 9:54 PM
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Once again, only one side is refusing to negotiate. There's no gray area here. One side wants to negotiate, and the other side does not. You can't get much more black & white then that.
As for the oscars, screw 'em.
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Dec 26, 2007 11:31 PM
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I feel that the hairdressers, makup artists, camera operators, sound people, key grips, caterers etc... are the ones that are really getting shafted here! How are they supposed to support their familes when both the AMPTP and WGA are behaving like spoiled children?
What makes you think this is not their fight as well? Or that the results of this strike aren't important to them? Or doesn't impact on them?
Well maybe not the caterers, since I'm not sure if they are in the same unions... but then caterers... they can get, and do get catering jobs outside the industry... and if they can't, maybe it's their own fault for not diversifying.
As for hairdresses, makeup artists, camera people, etc... there are jobs in independent films to be had... the WGA is not on strike against all producers... only the ones tied to the studios they are striking against. And there is temp'ing... a friend of mine had just moved to LA and was temp'ing during the 1988 strike and she met a lot of crew people temp'ing beside her. I was in awe of who she manage to meet while they were out working day jobs to keep food on the table.
Not saying it's not hard for people, not everyone can find alternate work to get them through this time. And people are having trouble making their rent and food bills, writers included. But just the fact you think the writers are spoiled children says to me that you are more about holding up crew people you think are affected to prove your point rather than actually caring about what is best for them...
... yes, it's terrible that they didn't have a vote in this strike... but you are making an assumption that if they could have voted for strike, they wouldn't have voted for strike as well. It's not the writers' fault that all the union contracts weren't up at the same time, or that the writers' contract was up first. It's everybody's fault... or not... I don't know what the circumstances are that led to this situation and unless you were on the negotiating teams, you do not either...
But you are making an unfounded and ungrounded assumption that if the IATSE and Teamsters contracts were up now, that they wouldn't be voting to strike just as the writers are. I can't say they would or will, but I know that almost everybody in a union is affected by these same issues. That's one of the reasons the AMPTP is so entrenched. The only ones that aren't are the non-union people who are already being scr***d and will continue to be.
If you really cared, you'd try to help the writers get what they deserve, because the crew people benefit too, and resolving the strike soon and in the favor of the unions... yes, unions, unionS, is what will help everyone.
Perhaps you'd like to peruse this:
http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/2007/12/union-solidarity-were-all-on-same-page.html
or this from a guy from IATSE:
http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/2007/11/together-we-bargain-divided-we-beg.html
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Dec 26, 2007 11:40 PM
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Yeah, why don't you stop watching the Oscars until the writers' strike is resolved. Idiots. Do you stop staying at hotels too when the maids go on strike? Turn off your TiVo when the local electric union goes on strike? Stop eating vegetables when farm workers go on strike? The hypocrisy and blind support of this strike is baffling. Let them strike and get what they want...good for them...I'm all for that. But unless they're sharing a chunk of that paycheck with me, my life is going to go on as usual.
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Dec 27, 2007 5:14 AM
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Yeah, why don't you stop watching the Oscars until the writers' strike is resolved. Idiots. Do you stop staying at hotels too when the maids go on strike? Turn off your TiVo when the local electric union goes on strike? Stop eating vegetables when farm workers go on strike?
I don't know about you, socalj, but I do know people (even back in the Midwest where I'm from) who stopped eating vegetables when farm workers went on strike. I do know people who stopped eating grapes for a strike that went on so long that they had to retrain themselves to eat grapes once the strike was settled. I was amazed and gratified at the number of people out here that supported the grocery clerks strike. For me, I had always bought half my stuff at Trader Joe's so I just had to learn to eat what I could 100% buy there, but I was amazed at how they couldn't keep the shelves stocked because of the huge influx of people choosing alternative shopping places.
So yeah, people who care do go the extra mile to make a difference. I will be very sad if fans can't live without their Tivos in support of people who are fighting for their livelihoods -- especially those fans who claim to have fondness for certain shows, actors, writers, creators, and yet can't respect them enough to turn off their Tivos to support them.
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Dec 27, 2007 6:14 AM
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