I have a busy day ahead of me. For a guy who's on strike, I sure seem to have a lot to get done. Then tonight, I'm going to try to make it out to the Writers Guild informational meeting out at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, a building I'm always amazed is still in existence. I think the last time I was there was when my mother insisted on us going to a Cat Show around 1967.
So posting here may be light today. To those of you interested in this whole matter of David Letterman's company signing an interim deal to get his shows back into production, I suggest you keep an eye on the details. A lot of press reports over the weekend I think jumped the gun, referring to negotiations 'twixt the WGA and Dave's Worldwide Pants as being in progress, almost concluded or even a done deal. Most of these had as their only source, this article by Bill Carter and Michael Cieply in The New York Times which, as you can see, says nothing of the sort; merely that Letterman was going to seek a deal. To date, I have seen no WGA spokesperson even comment long enough to say "No comment."
There is a valid argument, and I'm not sure which side of it I'm on, as to whether it will help or hurt the strike effort to make such a deal with a relatively small company. The WGA is open, even eager to see major production companies break ranks with the AMPTP and accept our terms but a deal with Letterman might just be a way to help CBS solve a crucial problem it has with two shows, thereby removing an incentive for them to settle with us as a whole. On the other hand, if an interim contract with Dave's outfit would be the first of many, that might get more momentum going in our direction. I really don't know. I just think that the assumption and news reports that it's definitely going to happen are premature. Wait until you see some WGA official quoted before you believe it.
In the meantime, I refer you to another fine piece by my friend Bob Elisberg for a good overview of the strike. The one thing I might quibble with, and this is minor and almost not worth mentioning, is that I don't think the AMPTP wanted this strike, or at least not this particular strike. I think they wanted a strike like we had in '85 where the whole thing collapsed in three weeks and we took a terrible deal and went back to work. The current strike, I don't think they wanted at all. I think someone pulled a Paul Wolfowitz and said the war would pay for itself; that they'd make so much off the rollbacks and lowballs — and establishing the precedent for them with other unions — that it would be worth a few weeks of a writers' walkout. I also think they didn't expect the strike to happen when it did; that they figured we'd work a few months longer, sans contract, thereby enabling them to get more product stockpiled.
None of that, of course, changes the fact that we are where we are. If we absolutely have to be out on strike against the monolith of the giant media conglomerates — and I don't see that we had a lot of choice — I still think we're in a pretty good place. I'll tell you after the meeting tonight if I still think so.