WEBVTT - The Two Strikes That Ground Hollywood to a Halt 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:14.160 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.520 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.320 Tracy, you watching anything good on TV these days? No, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:20.040 I'm serious. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.439 I just finished watching The Bear, which I know you 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:23.919 also watched, right I did. 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:28.000 I switch off usually between watching like some new show 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.040 and then going back and watching all six seasons of 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.599 The Sopranos, and then watching a new show and then 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.960 the Sopranos again. So I think I recent right before 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.920 The Bear, I did my seventh viewing of The Sopranos. 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:40.960 It's one of these things I never I don't know 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:42.840 what to watch now. I don't have a new show. 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:43.680 Do you need suggestions? 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:44.680 I need suggestions. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.200 Actually, I just finished watching all of Cheers, which I've 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.159 never seen really like it was kind of it was 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.280 always in the background. I was a big Frasier fan, 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.280 so I thought I should try Cheers, and I really 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:55.800 enjoyed it. 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.440 I want to watch Northern Exposure, but it's not on 0:00:58.480 --> 0:00:59.480 any of the streaming sage. 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.720 Yeah, I would love to rewatch that too. I remember 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.480 my mother loved that show. Okay, well we are not 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:07.840 actually doing TV reviews, are we? 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:07.920 We? 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:08.199 Good? 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:09.319 But you know. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.600 It is true, there is a lot of archive TV 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:13.919 material to watch. You don't even need to watch new shows. 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.960 No, that is true. You could endlessly watch the back 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.800 catalogs of old TV, which is fun and entertaining, but 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.240 has also given rise to a new issue for us 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:27.000 to worry about. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.040 Right, and so you know, right now we are in 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.720 the midst of sort of, I think at least two strikes. 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.760 I think that the writers, the screenwriters in Hollywood have 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.440 been on strike for at least a few months now. 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.480 The actors are on strike. So while there's plenty to watch, 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:44.600 and actually people are excited about going to the movies 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.319 again for the first time in a while, Like, my 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.000 understanding is that basically nothing is getting made right now. 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.320 Yeah, this is actually I know we said there's tons 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.680 of TV to get through, but I do also worry 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.080 about what if some of the good stuff shuts down? 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:57.640 But more broadly, and. 0:01:57.640 --> 0:01:59.440 I do want to know whether the guy gets out 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.720 of the freezer after in the Bear, right, because he 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.280 got caught in the freezer at the end. So I 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:05.040 hope there's a third season that resolves that. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.800 You know how they call everyone chef on the Bear, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.360 It's like, yes, chef. Okay, chef, should we start calling 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:10.680 each other? 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:11.120 Co host? 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.600 Yeah, yes, yes, co host, guest host, guess host okay. 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.360 All right, okay, So there is a concern over future content, 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.120 but this also fits more broadly into some of the 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.080 more active labor discussions and things that we've seen going 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.480 on recently. And we just finished up that episode about 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.560 the United Auto Workers Union and their fight against the 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.119 Big Three, and it feels like these are two very 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:40.480 different industries car manufacturers and you know, content creators for Hollywood, 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.880 but there are some similarities and also key differences underlying 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:46.560 both of these labor movements. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.760 Yes, host, let you know what, let's just get started. 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.240 We have two perfect guests to describe to help us 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.200 understand what's going on with Hollywood and the unions right now, 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.160 both of them in house. Here are colleagues. We're going 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.680 to be speaking with. Lucas Shaw, here's the managing editor 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.840 for Media and Entertainment at Bloomberg and the author of 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.720 the excellent screen Time newsletter. And we also have Josh Iidelson, 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:15.000 senior reporter for Bloomberg and BusinessWeek, who covers organized labor. 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.800 So Lucas and Josh, thank you both. So much for 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:18.360 coming on o. 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.280 Locks, thanks for having us, Thank you for having us, Lucas. 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.800 Why don't you give us the state of play generally 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.120 right now on Hollywood, Like how many strikes are going on, 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.320 who's on strike, who isn't on strike, Where are talks? 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:33.680 How long have they been going on? Give us like 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:35.760 the quick summation of where things stand. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.000 There are two strikes happening right now, which is the 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.560 first time that that has happened since nineteen sixty. The 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.960 first union to go on strike was the Writers Guild, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:47.800 which was at the beginning of May, so they've been 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.680 on strike for about three months. The last writer's strike 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:52.640 was in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.200 that lasted for one hundred days. This one looks almost 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.720 certain to blow past that. The actors join the writers 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:01.360 on strike in the middle of lie and so that's 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:03.680 been going on for a couple of weeks. The other 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.880 guild that had a deal coming up this year that 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:07.840 was a big deal with the directors. They did make 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.040 a deal with the studios, and so they are not 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:12.840 on strike. But you've now got you know, we've had 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.000 months of writers on the picket lines outside of studios 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.000 chanting and getting attention, and now the actors have joined them, 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.120 and the studios haven't made a lot of progress in 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:25.800 trying to sort it out with the actors. They are 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.320 now trying to get back at the table with the writers. 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.840 But from everything we've seen, the studios and the writers 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.480 were really far apart, not even close. The studios and 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.720 the actors were a little bit closer, but still a 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.080 lot of ground to make up, and nobody's really certain 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.640 when this is going to end, which is incredibly disorienting 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.240 and de stabilizing for most of the people who work 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.919 in the entertainment business and all of the industries that 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.560 work around it, whether it's you know, restaurants or stylists 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:49.320 or transportation. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.600 So talk to us a little bit about the issues 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.680 at play here, and you know, Joe brought up the 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.040 idea of the back catalogs, which I guess have become 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.640 more valuable given the right of streaming, and it seems 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.120 like writers or actors involved with those want a bigger 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.839 piece of the pipe. So what exactly are the complaints 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.120 here and how do they tie in with the way 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.520 the media business has sort of changed over time. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.760 Yeah, so the writers and actors have slightly different asks 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.440 or proposals, but the unifying theme under girding this dispute 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:30.560 is there's been this dramatic transformation in the entertainment business 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.200 which every consumer, every viewer knows about because it's streaming. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.520 Streaming has replaced cable TV, or is in the process 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.120 of replacing cable TV. That has changed how projects are made, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.240 how they are funded, and how talent gets paid. And 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.720 the writers and actors feel that they are not receiving 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.000 enough money from these big media companies and from streaming 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:56.120 services in particular, and that the ways in which they 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.000 are paid make the job, which was already not the 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.800 most secure position, even less secure, and so they are 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.960 looking for ways that protect themselves a bit more. At 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.960 the same time, the biggest reason that I think there's 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.080 so much labor unrest is because of that transition. Most 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.360 of these media companies also are not making as much 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.120 money as they used to because their cable networks are 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.280 less profitable, and they're pooring a ton of money into 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.400 the streaming services, most of which other than Netflix, lose money. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:26.839 Josh, let me bring you in. You know, one of 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.479 the themes that we've been talking about on recent episodes and 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.039 just out a lot. Is this sort of like this 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:37.240 idea of newfound energy in the labor movement more broadly? 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:39.560 And I don't know if there are actual number of 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.200 strikes is up, but we definitely see a new attitude, 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.039 or we saw it with the ups we see with 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.599 UAW et cetera. When you look at the unions in Hollywood, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.640 how similar is this, Like, you know, is the vibe 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.880 is these sort of political stance sort of similar to 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.000 what it was maybe in two thousand and six, or 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.880 has there been also a change to and the sort 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.440 of leadership and tactics that we see with some of 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:04.719 these Hollywood unions. 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.120 So, having covered the labor movement for more than a 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.040 decade now, it has often felt like every six months 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.200 or year or so, someone wants to grab something to 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.760 declare that the long declining labor movement in the US 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.680 is revived. And so I come at this generally with 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.440 a sense of skepticism. And we could go year by 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:28.800 year and I could tell you what the cool thing 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.520 was that was supposedly going to reverse the decline of 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:36.600 US labor unions and didn't. That said, what's been happening 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.080 in the past year and a half really is remarkable. 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.480 The most stunning thing that we've seen is at longtime 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:48.600 non union companies, the most famous companies in the United 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.720 States in many cases where for the first time workers 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:58.400 actually won union recognition at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, other places 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:03.840 like Trader Joe's, Microsoft, and those workers so far have 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.320 not won union contracts. But the fact that these places 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.240 that were seen, often including by union organizers, as impregnable, 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:18.440 suddenly now have legally recognized unions is a very significant shift, 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.440 and one that has impacted how workers think about their 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.800 jobs and about what's possible at other places, and also 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:30.240 I think has impacted the sense of ambition and possibility 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.160 for workers who've had a union for a long time. 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.400 And some people may remember in twenty twenty one there 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.840 was discussion about what was being called strike Tober, where 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.240 there were lots of union members authorizing or going on strikes. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.200 What's happened since then is more significant. By the numbers, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.520 this year has been a big year for strikes already, 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.520 not compared to the nineteen fifties. If you go to 0:08:55.600 --> 0:09:00.760 When I Love Lucy was on, we may remember that as. 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.559 It's a great show, which I have rewatched. 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.280 Probably on streaming. I'm guessing, although there could be an 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.880 I Love Lucy channel, I don't know about because I 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.840 cut the cord a long time ago. Every year that 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.720 I Love Lucy was on TV, there were, by current standards, 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.240 tons of people going on strike in the US. There 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.560 were close to or over a million people involved in 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.160 work stoppages every one of those years in the fifties. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.280 We are far from that because unions are a much 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.280 smaller share of the US workforce these days in terms 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.880 of the workers they represent. But by recent standards, this 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.240 has been a big year for strikes and for potential 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.200 strikes like the one that almost happened at UPS, the 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.600 ones that could happen in the auto industry, the one 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.319 that hypothetically could still happen at UPS if the teamsters 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.840 rejected the contract. And I think we're seeing that for 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:01.280 a number of reasons, including how the pandemic changed people's mindsets, 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.720 including what's been going on on with the labor market, 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.720 and also changes in leadership at some of these unions, 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:13.199 as workers have elected more militant leaders to represent them, 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.319 or as with the actors, members have been pressuring the 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.360 leadership to take a more aggressive posture so I think 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.960 it's fair now to say that, at a minimum, the 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:25.400 vibes have shifted here. 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.319 So one of the things that came up in our 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.400 recent episode on the UAW strikes or potential strikes was 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.720 this idea of you know, workers actively banding together, but 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.400 not just in their own industry, but with other industries. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.959 And I think this is something I actually learned a 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.200 term for it, horizontal solidarity. There's a new phrase, but 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.040 this is something that we've seen also in relation to 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.000 some of the Hollywood actions. I think we've seen members 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.480 of the Writers Guild like show up to the Teamster 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.080 rallies and vice versa. You know, teamsters refusing to make 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.520 deliveries to the studios and stuff like that. But how 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.120 much of that is a sort of new tactic and 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.079 how does it make these actions more effective? 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.120 Well, if you go far enough back in US labor history, 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.920 you can find examples of attempts to shut down a 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.719 whole city in a general strike with workers from all 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:27.400 sorts of industries. But more recently there has been more 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:33.400 work stoppages and more high profile labor disputes and potential 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:38.320 or existing strikes and organizing campaigns than we had seen 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:43.920 in a while, particularly at really prominent companies, where lots 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.480 of people notice what's happening, whether it's because they see 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.400 it on TV, or because they know someone who works there, 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.520 or because they depend on their UPS delivery person and 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.360 have a conversation with them. One of the phenomena that 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.280 our colleagues Spenser Soaper, has been writing about is the 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.200 role of UPS in Amazon's supply chain and that the 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:10.160 drivers for Amazon will now have more interaction with drivers 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:15.400 from UPS who just got this contract deal that includes 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:21.120 very significant raises. And so Starbucks workers, for example, have 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:25.400 inspired people at all sorts of companies, including Apple. We've 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.080 seen workers at places that some people don't think about 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.920 when they think about the labor movement historically, like graduate 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.400 students doing teaching and research who have come to think 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.720 of themselves more as workers and as having more in 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.920 common with workers they see taking action other places Lucas. 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.440 Just on the specific Hollywood actions that we've seen, is 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.400 it significant at all that SAG and the WGA are 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:55.520 striking at the same time, and should we think of 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:59.760 those two different strikes as two different labor disputes or 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:01.040 do the share similarities. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.559 It's incredibly significant. I mean again. It hasn't happened in 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:09.679 six decades, and it has shut down the industry for 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.640 months now. You know, the writer's strike prevents a lot 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.319 of development of new projects. It prevents studios from buying 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.439 things from writers because writers in studios are not supposed 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.880 to be communicating. It shuts down work on a lot 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.679 of TV shows because those are often sort of written 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.559 as you shoot them. The actors adds to that because 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.000 you know, you could have a movie that was in production, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.880 like the new Deadpool movie with Ryan Reynolds. The script's done, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:36.960 their in production, it's supposed to come out next year. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.640 The actor's gone strike that has to shut down. Suddenly, 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.240 Disney has no big tent pole movie for next year. 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:44.559 Actors can no longer promote their projects. So you have 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.920 a bunch of movies coming out in the fall where 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.360 some studios are pushing because if the talent in them 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.520 can't promote them, they fear that it will impact how 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.800 that performs. And so the combo strike means that it's 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.719 not just something that's an inside Hollywood story, it's something 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.920 that starts to affect the average person can see and 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.640 feel as to whether you can see them as sort 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.320 of distinct strikes or one of the same. I think 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:08.920 it's a little bit of both. You know, there are 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.760 issues that are very specific to writers around being on 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:13.960 set or the number of people in a writer's room 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:16.440 or all these things that the actors don't care so 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.160 much about. And same deal with the actors. You know, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.560 the actors have some issues with their pension plan, which 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.120 the writers do not have. But there are a number 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.920 of kind of big picture thematic problems that unify them. 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:32.000 That includes residuals, payments for projects being re aired, it 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.640 includes how much they get paid for people watching overseas 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.360 on streaming services. It's being able to share in the 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.440 upside of a successful show, and is also one of 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.080 those issues that has been unifying across the different US. 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.000 I definitely want to get into AI a bit more 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.600 on how it affects writers and actors and how the 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.080 studios are thinking about it. But I also just want 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.480 to go back to this question of like Lucas within 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.960 the context of these unions, like some actors make an 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.160 insane amount of money and we all know that, and 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.360 then some actors, like you know, they have to take 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.760 a side job waiting tables or attending bar or teaching 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:24.920 an acting class or something like that. I think it's 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.880 probably the same with writers and so forth, and so 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:29.880 of course, like when we talk about say ups so 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.320 the United Auto Workers. Of course, this tearing question, how 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:38.360 do the Hollywood unions maintain solidarity when the economics of 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.120 their own members are so skewed and so diverse. 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.360 Yeah, I mean solidarity is one of the bigger challenges 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.320 for these unions. You know, Josh was talking about some 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.120 of the changes in the approach and the membership of 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.200 these of these unions, and I think, if you know, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.760 you talked to both members of the unions and the studios, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.280 the unions in Hollywood today feel very different from how 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:01.680 they did ten or twenty years ago, you know, far 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.160 more progressive, far more activists, and at least in the 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.320 case of the Writers Unified, You're right that there are 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.160 a lot of people in these unions who make a 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.400 lot of money, which I think sometimes makes them sort 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.520 of unsympathetic figures, because it seems like, you know, rich 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.360 Hollywood actors and writers fighting with rich Hollywood studio chiefs. 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.440 And there's a degree to which that's true. Obviously, you 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.760 have movie stars who are in these unions, or you 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.680 have writers like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy who've made 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.120 hundreds of millions of dollars who are in them. But 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.680 that's a really small layer at the top. Most of 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.040 the people in these unions are very much working class. 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.840 A lot of them have second and third jobs, which 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.240 ironically makes them able to sort of hang on a 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.080 little bit longer. There's not the same pressure to reach 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.720 a deal really quickly. This strike can go on for months, 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.440 and it seems like everybody sort of figures out a 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.720 way to make it work. They've been able to really 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.960 get the wealthier members, especially in the Actors Guild, on 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.640 their side. There was a famous letter signed by a 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.720 few hundred of the richest and most famous actors in Hollywood, 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.400 basic telling the leadership of the Actors Guild, like, don't 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.040 make a big compromise, or don't compromise your values, go 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.280 for a big deal. We support you. I think the 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.280 writers it's a little murky yer. You do have some 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.040 writer producers who are maybe not on board with everything, 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:15.760 but they're not going to come out and say it. 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.680 And that letter ended in an interesting way because they 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:24.080 were telling the leadership of the Actors' Union, we're concerned 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:25.720 you may not be as willing to go out on 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.280 strike as we are. And the leader of the union, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.399 fran Dresher, responded by adding her own name to the 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.320 letter to herself. 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.280 Can I just ask on the actor's side? There was 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.120 one demand that I saw and it kind of reminded 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.120 me of some of the issues Joe that we saw 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.520 with truckers titling at the port, and you know, they 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.000 sign up for a job that's for X amount of 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.639 money and supposed to take X amount of hours or days, 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.280 and then they wind up spending a lot of time 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.439 just waiting to take on the loads. And the actors 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.280 are complaining about not being paid for audition times, which 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.239 if anyone has ever done acting or modeling, you know 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.840 that you can spend all day going to castings and 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.679 come away with nothing in some cases. How thorny is 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.520 that issue? And what are the proposals actually to fix that, 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.119 because it seems like a difficult one. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.880 The issue of free labor is one that I'd say 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.679 both the writers and actors are unified in. Obviously the 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.800 type of labor is different, but writers don't want to 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.320 have to do a bunch of drafts of something without 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.320 getting paid more money. Actors don't want to have to 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.480 spend all this money going for auditions without getting paid 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.639 something in return. I'm not sure how that's going to 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.879 get solved. There are a bunch of asks that the 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.640 writers and actors have made that are fairly fundamental structural 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.400 changes to how the industry works. Those being some big examples, 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.600 and I don't get the sense from the studio side 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:52.800 that there's a lot of interest in giving on them. 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.040 You know, they feel like if they give the writers 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.600 and actors more money on some of the core issues, 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.040 that the free labor things may be overlooked. But there's 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.680 no question that Hollywood has long preyed on the fact 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.280 that there are thousands, if not millions, of people who 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.120 would love to be famous, and so they can get 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:13.639 them to do a bunch of work for free. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:16.640 Well, this was going to be my other question, which 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.399 is how much leverage do the studios actually have here, 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.520 because it seems there is this endless stream of starry 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:29.600 eyed want to be stars who potentially would be more 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.240 than happy to, I guess, break union lines and go 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:33.840 for things. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.000 It's a really good question, and I'm not sure I 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.960 know the answer. I think that the conventional wisdom is 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.160 that the studios and big media companies have more leverage 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.240 than the writers and actors, because at a certain point 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.080 you're going to have a lot of these writers and 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.520 actors who have bills. If they don't work and they 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.240 don't make money for months and months and months, it's 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:55.760 going to start to negatively impact their lives in ways 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.639 that they won't be able to make rent. They are 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.680 all these things that horrible things that could happen to them. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.200 The media companies, they will suffer a little bit from 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.560 not having new product and not being able to make money, 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.359 but a lot of the ways those companies make money 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.040 are unaffected. Right. They have deals for their cable networks 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.120 with PayTV distributors where they get paid fees every month. 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.640 They get paid no matter what, right, as long as 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.960 the ratings don't fall off a total cliff. They have 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.159 backlogs of programming in library that they can put on. 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.280 CBS doesn't have as much new programming to put on 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.200 in the fall because of the strike, but they can 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.440 still do reality TV, which is not part of these 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.760 so there's going to be survivor. They can still do 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.439 news so they'll be ninety minutes of sixty minutes. They 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:37.760 can still do sports, so they'll be football coming in 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.200 the fall. And then they're part of a company where 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:41.960 they can take a show like Yellowstone that's a big 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.760 hit for the Paramount network and put it on CBS 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.720 to an audience that probably hasn't seen Yellowstone before. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.120 What about international TV? I mean that's a huge thing. 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.639 I like when I like turn on Netflix, you know 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:55.720