 The most dangerous man in Hollywood? | Jan. 11th, 2008 @ 06:22 pm  |
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at The Guardian . Lichtenstein wrote one of my favorite biographies: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor. I recommend this book to anyone who would like to get a longer view of the labor movement. It will give some perspective on the tactics and strategies and long range goals of any union on strike.I mentioned in one of my posts (
monacojerry The WGA and the Attempt to Organize the Unorganized ) that Patric Verrone, the President of WGAw, has been treated by the media moguls as if he were Walter Reuther. Like Walter Reuther, who was called the "most dangerous man in Detroit", there are those among the AMPTP masters of the universe who believe the WGAw president is the most dangerous man in Hollywood. Such people are only those who wish that writers and all workers in Hollywood would just sit-down, shut-up and do as they are told.The rest of us who support this strike, should know that there are great things at stake in the WGA strike and Verrone is only being the best representative he can for the writers in Hollywood and, I believe, for all of labor in the Hollywood industry. The WGA writers are making a stand for things that are worth fighting for.
Nelson Lichtenstein's article puts into a larger context some of what the WGA and the creative workers in Hollywood are fighting for.
A little knowledge
by Nelson Lichtenstein
The US writers strike proves that the new 'knowledge workers' of the 21st century still need to fight old battles for a fair share of their output
January 3, 2008 5:00 PM
Win, lose or draw, Hollywood's striking writers have written finis to one long-running episode in American cultural and intellectual history. For years the most sophisticated prognosticators writing about the global economy have assured us that in our creative, cyber-oriented world new forms of work and enterprise would put an end to the old conflicts and controversies that once plagued industrial America. Contests over money, power and status, not to mention strikes, unions and hard-nosed bargaining sessions, were increasingly played out. They were so rust belt, certainly out of place in the hip and hyper-innovative world spawned by new media, iPod downloads and hyper-educated workers.
Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's first secretary of labour, forecast an America in which legions of newly minted "symbolic analysts" made the United States globally competitive once again, even as they transformed the old corporate hierarchies into a system that was "more collaborative, participatory, and egalitarian than is high-volume, standardized production."
Read More at The Guardian
:music: DocArchive: Assignment - Taxi to the Dark Side 3 Jan 2008
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