Things seem quiet today. I suspect they'll be quiet for a few days but who knows? One thing you ought to avoid is giving much consideration to predictions based on just about nothing. I read one blog this morning where someone said, "I'm hearing the strike will last until April." Hearing from whom? Whose forecasts on this have any particular worth?
April could be right. So could January or June. You could randomly pick almost any date between just before this Christmas and just before the next one and you could be right. But J. Nicholas Counter and Patric Verrone don't have any idea when the strike is going to be over and may not even have sound hunches as to when negotiations between the combatants will reconvene. So how could anyone's prediction be any more than a wild guess? We know that given where things stand, even if on-the-record talks resumed tomorrow, they probably couldn't settle matters in the next week or two. We also know that the longer this thing goes on, the more pressure there will be on both sides to concede points and get this thing over with. But beyond that, you might as well lob darts at a calendar.
Here's a chunk of an e-mail from Stan Pauley…
Does the AMPTP have a point in their position? I read over all the press releases and statements and it gave me a headache. While I am very much on the Writers' side in this, despite not being a writer myself, it does seem to me like the WGA is asking for some things that are outrageous. Please explain.
Gladly. Yeah, our side is asking for some things that may be a bit excessive…although you should never go by one side's summary of what the other side is demanding. Of course, their description of what the WGA is seeking is skewed to make us seem unreasonable and overreaching. I wouldn't go by our summary of their positions, either. One of the nice (and new) things about labor disputes in the age of the Internet is that it's possible to read a lot of the actual proposals online. The AMPTP version of what the WGA is seeking in the area of animation, for example, strikes me as about as accurate as any given presidential candidate's quoting of his opponent's positions that he wishes to rebut.
(The AMPTP is saying that our demands in this area are "…unacceptable because the WGA is trying to achieve through these negotiations what the WGA has failed to achieve through traditional labor organizing techniques." My understanding is that what we're demanding there is removal of some specific language in the AMPTP-WGA contract that has made it more difficult for the WGA to engage in traditional labor organizing techniques, even in situations where there presently is no union coverage of any sort. To organize any body of workers, a union still needs to win an election and get the consent of the governed.)
But okay, so let's say some of our demands are excessive. So? This is a contract negotiation. The other side comes to the table with all sorts of excessive demands, some of which they seek to achieve, some of which are just in there so they can be dropped at what seems like an opportune moment. This is how bargaining works. You don't lead with your bottom line and you don't unilaterally drop everything the other side says they won't give you.
I know it's frustrating and you'd think grown men and women could sit down today and dispassionately make the deal they'll make in January or February or whenever so things could get back to normal and lives would not be disrupted. Unfortunately, that's not how it works, and that's more the fault of the AMPTP than it is of us. This is their game, their playing field, their bat, their gloves and — especially — their balls. They set it up that way because they usually get what they want that way. This is just turning out to not be one of those "usual" times.