I keep being wrong about something with regard to the Writers Guild strike. Having lived through far too many of these, I keep expecting vitriol and anger and even loud and honest dissent. The dissent is fine, even healthy, though it has too often been exaggerated in the press and by the folks with whom we negotiate. Twenty outraged members have this odd way of looking to some like a sizeable percentage of a Guild whose membership numbers in the thousands.
Throughout this strike I have constantly expected it to start; for some meeting to devolve into a mud wrestling competition. And I have constantly been wrong…because this strike is just about over and at least as of the time I headed home from this evening's membership meeting, what I'd been expecting hadn't started. The mood in the hall was unified, respectful, grateful and even celebratory. No vote was taken. That will occur shortly. But the sense of the room suggested the deal will be accepted and not, as I hope with all deals of this sort, by a whisker. I must admit the terms sounded better to me there than when I read the summary, which perhaps is an important lesson. Several points needed some explaining and amplification before their value was apparent.
A feeling of victory seemed to be the prevailing mood. I lost count of the well-deserved standing ovations and when they opened the floor microphones for questions or arguments, they began getting only questions and minor suggestions about deal points. As of the moment I left, no one had suggested that the deal not be ratified…and it would have been very easy for someone to say that if they'd genuinely felt it was improvable.
I still can't quite believe it. It goes without saying that no one likes to be on strike and that they're always nasty, messy affairs where too many people — many of them innocent bystanders — are injured. Unfortunately, like some other things in life that we wish never occurred, strikes are sometimes necessary. There are times when those in power (the employers, the Powers That Be) go for the lowball and think they have the clout to maximize profits by bleeding those who work for them. They come up with an either-or proposition, one with only two options: Go on strike or accept a rotten deal. I'm always astonished at the number of folks who leap to blame the union for taking the only viable course of action in that situation.
Not only is a rotten deal unacceptable for us but if we take it, the other unions get rotten deals…rottener, even. And when the next negotiation rolls around, we get the rottenest one of them all. That's how it works. You have to say no and stop that. You want to know why there was a Writers Strike? Because they didn't offer us in November the contract that they offered us at 1:30 AM (or whenever) this morning.
And they could have. It's not that fabulous an offer. It won't hurt the profits at Disney, Paramount, Sony, et al, one bit. What it does mean is that the writers who don't make the Megabucks (and that's the vast majority of the WGA) have a better shot at making a basic living. That's all this has ever been about.
I'm feeling very good about this strike. Like I said, I've lived through several and am usually appalled by something done by "my side." Sometimes, it's been gross mismanagement by the leadership. Other times, the leadership has done the best job possible but has been undercut by the fracturing of our ranks. None of that happened this time. Our president Patric Verrone, our Executive Director David Young, WGA negotiating committee chair John Bowman and everyone on that committee, along with the staff and Board of Directors all handled a regrettable situation about as well as it could have been handled. And the membership was right there with them because the issues were so clear and the need to say "no" was so obvious.
Before I leave this topic, I should apologize for something. As I said in an earlier post, I had not planned to "live-blog" from the meeting but sitting there, taking notes on my BlackBerry of things I wanted to mention here later, I was suddenly struck by that odd obsession I have to blog from odd places and I put up a post. A few minutes after, Patric on the stage asked people not to live-blog and I quickly took it down. Or at least, I thought I did. It's easier to post via BlackBerry than it is to delete. Anyway, that post has been removed. I don't think I disclosed anything privileged…certainly nothing that exiting writers weren't telling reporters outside as I was leaving. But Patric Verrone and his associates have done the most amazing, commendable job I've ever seen of managing a strike…and if he thinks it's wrong, it probably is. So I apologize to him and the Guild and I'll never do it again.