 Who are the Producers? Part 1 - Social Reflections on the Writers' Strike | Dec. 22nd, 2007 @ 09:17 am  |
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Writers Guild of America, West, President Patric Verrone said, "If the producers gave us everything we wanted -- everything. And they then made a deal with the DGA and matched it, which is what they would do. And then they made a deal with the Screen Actors Guild and tripled it, which is typically the pattern. If they did that, if they gave us everything, on a company by company basis, they would be giving all of us less than each of their CEOs makes in a year. And in some cases a lot less."The primary fact to grasp about this strike is that the WGA is a small union pitted against some of the most powerful multinational corporations in the world. General Electric owner of NBC, Time Warner, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. owner of Fox, Viacom/CBS (largely owned by billionaire Sumner Redstone’s National Amusements), Disney and Sony -- these are the business entities that call themselves the "producers" in this strike. These multinationals have more power and money than most nations on earth and often act as if they are sovereign entities. Anybody who challenges their power, economically or politically, are on their enemies list and will be treated accordingly.
In fact, the people who own and run these companies "produce" nothing. As part of the usual "propaganda of the name", the organization through which these large multinationals negotiate is called "the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers" (AMPTP). But the actual "producers" in the industry have issued a statement that the multinationals of the AMPTP don’t exactly represent them. (I will have more to say on the ideology of this nomenclature in a future post.) These so called "producers" who control the AMPTP, spend most of their time fighting with other executives, "restructuring" their companies, making big financial deals with other companies. These big deals often enough lead to unemployment, reduced wages, and degradation of the common weal, while increasing the "compensation" of the big dealers.
These "executives" do not contribute to the cultural life of humanity, not even to the extent of being decent "patrons."* They are not modern Medici. The owners and "managers" of these corporations do not want to sponsor creativity, but only insure that it is within their control. The "cultural" choices that these new robber-barons make when buying the media of cultural propagation (the public air-waves, the municipal monopolies of cable, the retail outlets, the publishing companies, the internet companies, etc.) show no concern for anything but increasing the wealth and power of people like themselves and of the institutional entities that they run. There is little to deter their pursuit of wealth and power, because the social system we have created is based on the perpetuation of immortal entities called corporations that must expand or die. The matters of basic human decency, or of telling the truth about the world we live in, or even the minimal desire to provide laughter, thought, and tears, through good entertainment, are all subservient to the need for wealth and power.
Let me make this clear, this is not a matter of simple greed. Of course, we live in a social system where greed is good. But the personal preferences of the rulers and owners of these corporate entities don’t really matter that much at the end of the day. They may hate George Bush and give to charity and think of themselves as good people. Yet, if they don’t expand their profits, control, and power, then their businesses will be strangled and they themselves will fall from the top… often enough now days with a golden parachute.
In other words, there are institutional imperatives that make these people assholes.
Just as it is a mistake to think that this strike is mainly about personal greed it is also a mistake to think that this strike is mainly about money. It is important to be clear, that for the average WGA member the strike is about a better way of life and a secure future, for themselves and their families. But that is not what primarily concerns the big bosses of the multinationals. Their perspective is larger and wider. It is about power. It is about control of the future. It is about maintaining their oligopoly over popular culture.
The WGA estimates that over the next three years the extra compensation that would result if all the WGA demands were accepted would be 150 million dollars. This is truly a small amount for these companies.
Let's look at the facts.
Jeffrey R Immelt
, CEO/Chairman of the Board/Director at General Electric Company, the owners of NBC, in 2006 was compensated $17,863,452 in salary and $19,778,460 in stock options, for a total of more than 37 million in one year. Over the course of three years that would out to be more than 119 million dollars. This is more than enough to cover General Electrics share of compensation to 10,000 writers.Peter Chernin
, of News Corp. owner of Fox, $33,985,578 in salary and $28,457,069 in stock-options for a compensation of more than 62 million in one year. His boss at News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, $32,135,675 and unknown amount in stock options. Over the course of three years of a WGA contract their compensation together would amount to much more than 280 million dollars.Sumner M Redstone
, owner and former CEO of Viacom/CBS made $16,436,125 as CEO of Viacom and $12,164,115 as Chairman of the Board of CBS. It seems his stock options totaled $45,621,293. Over one year this is more than 74 million dollars and the over three years of a WGA contract more than 222 million dollars.I will not bore you with any more of these figures.
The point here is not that these "producers" are being paid an obscene amount, or that they can more than afford to compensate writers, directors, actors and all the people "below the line" from grips to make-up. My point is not the same propaganda thrust as made by WGA Pres. Patric Verrone, but rather a strategic observation. The bosses' ability to easily compensate writers is an indication that they see the primary struggle of this strike as not a struggle over money but a struggle over power and control, both in the present and in the future. I hope to write another post specifically on the world view of the bosses of these corporations, but suffice it to say here that their perspective is not limited to Hollywood and New York but to the world as a whole.
In many ways the propaganda of the AMPTP is correct but distorted, as through a glass darkly. In their propaganda everything is reversed. They claim that the strike is about "ideology." They are correct. But it is not the WGA and Patric Verrone who are adhering to an unyielding ideology, but the media moguls. They believe that if they don’t take control of their creative workforce and of new media, now, they will lose an essential part of their monopoly of media "products", in the future. And with this decline in control over new media will come a loss of power, primarily political power here in the U.S. and in the rest of the world. They say this strike is about the "future" of the industry. They are correct. But the future they envision is one where most of our cultural "product" is "owned" by a few huge multinational corporations. They wish to treat our cultural creativity as if it were mere kitchen appliances, food processors, blenders, microwaves. The creators of the "product" they wish to treat as mere "hands," who are hired to assemble the pieces, and then are laid-off when not needed.
The only way to change this situation is for ordinary people, people who actually do the work of creating and producing, to get together and try to counter the power of the multinational corporations. That in part is what this strike has come to be about. The WGA was forced to strike as a matter of simple fairness and compensation. This strike amounts to a lock-out by the media moguls. For them it is not a matter of money, the nickels and dimes that they carry in their pocket – the true matter of this strike for the multinationals is control of culture. In order to maintain that control they have decided to take the hit of a strike. They think they can afford it. But we, the rest of us, must support the WGA in every way possible. We must make sure that the multinationals come to see that they can't afford this strike. We must find ways to make them feel the pain of the loss of profits and power. In future posts I hope to speak of the strategy and tactics of this strike and the dilemmas of a small union opposing the Leviathan of multinationals.
Jerry Monaco
22 December 2007
New York City
[Caveat: I am not a member of the WGA, nor do I speak for any of the officers or members. I have been a member of other unions in the past and I am a supporter of a stronger union movement in the United States. J.M.]
This work is licensed under a Creative
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.* As a matter of fairness I must mention that the CEO of Sony is one, Howard Stringer, who started his career as a writer at CBS. Sony is a Japanese corporation. The star-culture of the great CEO personality cult has not yet hit Japan. Thus of all the CEOs on the list of union busters, Stringer is the only one who actually ever got his hands inky and the one who is compensated the least.
music: Saturday's Child
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