Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Okay, okay. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

I was real tempted to spout off when the Feds indicted some Carpenters for embezzlement, bribery, wire fraud on the same day that Garth Drabinsky started his 7 years of research on a musical version of “The Big House.” It was certainly an karmic rich environment with Drabinsky’s attorney (or “mouthpiece” as Darth is learning) proposing that Drabinsky do community service by speaking to theatre students about “avoidance of unethical conduct” and the knuckleheaded President of the Carpenters turning himself in and testing positive for cocaine and marijuana. But thinking that I might not have anything positive to add to the conversation, I withheld comment.

But now some punk cheesehead from Racine, sitting at his computer alone in the dark in his underwear, is sending out anonymous emails about Union members not attending the Town Hall meeting about health care reform.

From the Huntington Post.

You socialist f---s have the nerve to say stop the violence at the town hall meetings when they weren't violent until you p---ies showed up because your n----- leader obama said to?????? When we have ours in Racine, Wi, I want you there. I want one of your little b----- to put his hands on this Marine. I want one of you to look or talk to me wrong. I'll be the last thing your ignorant faux body guards will remember for a very long time. You can f---ing guarantee that.

Yo, yo, Joe Cheesehead, over here, listen up. I fully realize that as a member of organized labor and a union member, I belong to one of the most despised minorities in the United States today. In fact I take a bit of pride in that. It’s an outlaw thing. And I understand that you, Joe The Dumber, are not really arguing for the retention of corporate profits in place of healthcare, in some form, for all. It’s that whole supremacist thing, us vs. them that you want to keep. That little high your brain produces when the hate juices are flowing. But you are allowing yourself to be played by the racist fear mongers that seem to have dominated the body politic since Joe McCarthy’s red baiting and Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” The same billionaires that are shipping the industrial base of America to cheap labor markets are using your rage to promote their money driven control over every aspect of your life. Wake up. You don’t like the way things are and you’re afraid to change. Not a pleasant place to be. And so you rage.

You do have a right, guaranteed the Constitution, to have freedom of speech. So do I. However your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose. So lets stop the threats, the name-calling and the pitting of Americans against Americans. Don’t hang on to your hate but don’t lose your rage. Direct it against the people who are really ruining America.

The Pushcart Takes A Hit

The NY Times reports that during a time of deepening economic crisis, The Broadway League imposed an unannounced $1 a ticket surcharge on the tickets sold at TKTS. TKTS is the ticket outlet for discount tickets sold by the Theatre Development Fund, the not-for-profit that was established to aid in the promotion of the performing arts in NYC. The League, which has decried anything that would raise ticket prices, quietly imposed the surcharge/fee/restoration charge on those patrons at the lower end of the economic scale; those who patiently wait in line in all kinds of weather to see what discount tickets are available. Three months later, when the state considered a restoration of the amusement tax, Rocco Landesman, the nominee for Chairman of the NEA, plead "pity the poor workingman" in arguing against the tax in front of a legislative hearing on the tax proposals, saying that ticket price increases will cause shows to close, restaurants to fail and frogs to fall from the sky. The League, which according to tax returns spends 30% of its revenue on salaries, claims that the fee is for "added value for theatergoers", educational programs and web sites. League member dues, which make up about half of the Leagues $8 million revenue, will go up by 10%. The source of the additional 10% was not disclosed but it is unlikely that in these troubled times, the theatre patron will see ticket prices drop.

I fail to see how raising the cost of a ticket will add value to theatre-goers on a budget. It’s also interesting how we’ve gotten to “the hard-working men and women employed by Broadway” from "Our goal is simple: to pay for workers we need and for work that is actually performed."

The last surcharge became a war chest. Who's next?

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Does anyone else see a similarity between the uproar over Nancy Pelosi and scenery? Not to make light of the suffering these human beings were put through but it seems to me that blaming Nancy Pelosi for the torture scandal is like blaming the closing of a show on the scenery. Both were in the background, neither were strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage. She didn't write the play, cast it, light it, prop it or even elect to produce the turkey in the first place. And now the actors and producers are saying, “Nancy, why didn’t you tell us this one was a stinker? It’s your fault!”

And the Times dutifully reports about the latest fight backstage as if it was actually somehow consequential. “Minsky outraged he’s not being sued for a million.”

There’s the news and then there’s the facts. What a world.

Where's The Adult Supervision?

So The Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA) decided that a nice little concert would be fun. They even had a cute little name for it. Last Smash Platinum Bash. Since the Kanye West "Glow in the Dark Tour," packed the McKale Center's 14,545 seats with 9000 ticket buyers, the President of the University, Tommy Bruce, decided to make it a "top priority during his second term to rekindle a stadium concert."

The student promoters’ education began with an unusual pairing of acts and strange method of financing. University of Arizona to Host 1 Million Dollar Concert Featuring Jay-Z and Kelly Clarkson reports that while the cost to put on the show rose to above $1 million, ASUA was working on a zero-based budget in which all expenses will be covered after the concert in the form of ticket sales and other revenue. What could possibly go wrong?

JAY-Z/KELLY CLARKSON CONCERT A BUST

*An Arizona concert featuring Jay-Z and Kelly Clarkson was a financial failure, according to organizers.
The Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA), who put on the concert, paid Jay-Z $750,000 to co-headline the event with pop star Kelly Clarkson. While Jigga praised the odd pairing, telling MTV it reaffirms that "good music" is neither black nor white; it wasn't enough to sell tickets.

According to estimates listed in the Arizona Daily Star, the student union gave away over 4000 tickets to the Last Smash Platinum Bash in hopes of securing marketing deals with newspapers and radio stations. However, the show still posted a loss of $917,000.

Did the university fire anyone or demand that the promoters add the loss to their student loans? Well, no. In teaching the young adults both personal and business ethics, it allowed the deficit to be made up to be made up not by the promoters but by the University Bookstore. The Bookstore, a monopoly on campus, seems to be operating at such a large profit margin that it had the excess funds at its disposal. A bit like a trust fund in which the well-to-do can fall back on in times of difficulty instead taking personal responsibility for their failures.

Beware The People Weeping

For the first time in a number of years, May Day celebrations in Europe turned into riots. The loss of their standard of living, rising unemployment and lost benefits were the cause of the large May Day turnout. In the US, we, as workers, don't need to espouse any alternative types of economic systems because everything is just going just great. In fact, in the US we don't celebrate May Day anymore because in 1959, the day was rebranded Loyalty Day.

Anger and hunger have a way of making movements develop before there are press releases, before time can be reserved on the bird for stand-ups, before it can be packaged. Gil Scott Heron had some thoughts on this. As did John Steinbeck in the Grapes Of Wrath which is well worth a watch again.

I came across Herman Melville's "The Martyr", his elegy on Lincoln's death, and the last stanza gave me a shock.

The Martyr
Herman Melville
...............
There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When they bare an iron hand.

The truth can be a fearsome thing.

After The Fall

Before the bankers and brokers coughed up this massive furball of a financial mess, the common wisdom in the theatre was that “people will always need entertainment” and that we were recession proof. There would be shows and music and we would bring a few moments of joy to a suffering public. As long as one never took a long, hard look at our history as an industry, this was comforting. The Federal Theatre Project existed simply to give the Marc Blitzstein background for The Cradle Will Rock , nothing more.

Now, however, the interconnectiveness of it all is starting to become clearer. Right after New Years, headlines predicted the collapse of Broadway (OMG, 11 SHOWS CLOSING. SELL EVERYTHING!) while failing to mention that 9 shows were scheduled to open by March 1st. They may have been more correct than their short attention spans would have indicated. When the pipeline of new work emptied out of the scene shops and the theatres reopened, everyone looked over their shoulder to see what was next. There wasn’t anything. The shops that had hired 40 to 50 went down to minimal staffs and now there is a just smattering of new work coming in. What’s missing? The two things everybody in this business needs, money and credit. The money is for the landlord and the credits for the resume. Now the real world has intervened and things have gotten switched around. Bankers aren’t giving credit to shop owners and the rest of us aren’t getting any money. Shop owners play a key role in keeping this business afloat by carrying producers and fronting them material and crews to built the sets. There is certainly upfront money needed for each show but tools, buildings, plywood, screws, etc are all bought on credit, the shop owner’s credit. Some shop owners have better credit and cash flow management techniques than others. Like the ones whose payrolls don't lag with the producers checks and weeks pass without the crew getting paid. Don’t get me started.

Why isn’t there credit for scenery? Because bankers, like Toby Keith, are vowing that they will never smoke dope with Willie again. They partied long and hard and ended up in the fetal position with drool on their chin. “Just one more credit default swap and I’ll be good, man, I mean it.” The bankers and brokers are like those who are new to recovery and are just a little itchy and scratchy. “Credit? No, man, I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t go there right now. I gotta meeting I got to go to, otherwise I would. Maybe later.” Meanwhile we, the toiling class, have to start a national Alanon meeting for those of us whose lives have been directly impacted by those with an addiction to money.

Things will loosen up. Money will start to flow again and we’ll go back to churning out entertainment. I don’t think there will be that “Quinn The Eskimo” moment when everybody jumps for joy, but we’ll get better. Just will just happen one day at a time.

Imagine Sisyphus Happy

In a post back in December I looked at some IATSE history and road scales. Then I found Working Life by the Labor Research Association. Jonathan Tasini had a column about wages not keeping up with productivity or inflation. Since I already had a reference point for IATSE I thought I'd see how we have done.

1917 $45
2008 Adjusted for inflation $759.73
2008 $30hr or $1200wk is fairly typical

Considering where we started from, over all, pretty good.

1917 $45
1974 Adjusted for Inflation $173
1974 $280

Through the Depression, WWII and after, it looks like we were doing pretty well for ourselves. Beating inflation, getting ahead, buying homes, and educating our kids.

1974 $280 (from an hourly rate for a grip, $6.70 hr)
2008 Adjusted for inflation $1,227.34 or $30 an hour.

The last quarter century we've just been keeping even and stopped getting ahead.

But then if minimum wage had kept up with inflation from it's start in 1938 when it was .25, it would be only be $3.85. Oh wait. In NY State, it's $7.15.

It's a good thing we had cheap credit and jobs for our wives or we might have been in trouble.

Broadway Saves Wall Street

What's so funny about an amusement tax?

So the Gov wants to tack on 4% to tickets and Hizzoner wants to tack on another 4%. “Everybody's gettin' inta da act!” For this they did away with term limits?

This is what happens when you gross close to a Billion a year. A victim of our own success.

Why not a luxury tax like baseball has. Figure out what the average ticket price is for each house and then average that across all the legitimate houses. Let's say the hypothetical number is $86.50. Tickets below $86.50 or whatever remain tax-free. Any tickets above that are taxed incrementally until tickets that are priced at twice the average are taxed at 25%. Tickets above twice the average are then taxed at a steeper rate until those people who are buying hot tickets are paying the highest taxes. If you can afford a $450 ticket to a Broadway show then taxes aren't really important to you. If you're a school group buying tickets in the upper balcony, that 8% may be the difference of you seeing your first Broadway show or not.

When pigs fly!

Mopping The Counting-up Room Floor

Bloomberg has an article that describes the latest feeding frenzy in the shark filled waters of Broadway. Seems that those folks who believe that the arts exist for the sole benefit of themselves, i.e. the Producers, lifted the curtain on a little drama being played out with the party of the second part, i.e. the Theatre Owners, the other folks who believe that the arts exist solely for themselves. The subject only seems to be "a comprehensive discussion on the economics of the producer- theater-owner" because-the wolf is at the door, the wolf is at the door!

Learning their lessons from the Bob ( Ain't Nobodies Bidness If I Do ) Sillerman school of theatre production, some of the Producers are contending that the reason audiences are staying away from yet another juke-box musical is because of additional fees charged by the house, like the fee for staying after the show and actually counting the receipts. “The landlords won’t ever admit they charge bogus fees,” said the producer of several major Broadway hits, speaking on condition of anonymity because he hopes to continue producing Broadway hits." Note the diminishing reference to "landlords" rather than "theatre owner" by the brave but anonymous producer.

As sense memory exercise try this. Substitute "piano" for "counting-out room", substitute "mopping" for "restoration" and substitute "flyman" for "credit card fees". Then watch this rewind from the League's Strike Press Conference. If you begin to see their lips moving and nothing coming out, you may or may not have reached a higher state of awareness in your ability to analyze the cycles of the extraction of the surplus value by the owners of capital. In fact,the sound really is dropping out of the video.

On The Bounce

The business is slow right now and there is a lot of fear out there. As workers we’ve been inculcated with fear about our jobs, our future and our status in life since the Reagan administration. The middle class life we knew has moved further and further out of our reach. Rightly or wrongly we measure our self worth by the kind of work we do and when there isn’t any work, we’re diminished.
One of the odd things about this business is working on the bounce. There is a sizable population of our business who work as per-diems or daily hires. Technicians who by design or circumstance live a life determined by the ebb and flow of work calls, holidays, special events, swinging into a show track, one-offs or hotel jobs. Split shifts, back to back to back calls, clockers and short notice calls are all part of the career. Depending on what is going on in you home life will determine how quickly you take any call that comes along. A stagehand with kids and a mortgage isn’t going to get much sleep.
How one copes with financial insecurity often determines the part of this business one goes into. Stagehands sometimes get a basic, full-time job and never venture out of the venue into the rest of the jurisdiction. Others don’t have the skills or the contacts that allow them to get these jobs offered to them in the first place. Still others seem to have the job skills but lack the social skills to stay in one place for very long. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
The hardest part is managing cash flow. After enough time in the business you learn that a steady job often means you can keep a smaller cushion since money is coming in on a steady basis. When your bouncing around, however, you keep a larger cushion because the checks arrive when they arrive. When doing a hotel job you know not to count on the check at the end of the call, the end of the week or even at the end of the month. Corporate jobs often tend to be slow since the payroll has to get invoiced, passed through the production company that hired you, then sent to the client, processed through their invoicing system and checks are then cut. Weeks can pass and sometimes enough time passes that a check comes in the mail that you had forgotten about. Sometimes you end up being fly-by-night operations creditors but the Local is pretty good about that sort of stuff. I’ve gotten ripped off a lot more often without a contract than with one.
It’s a balancing act keeping the bills paid, the calls filled and having a real life. Most of the time when things get out of balance it’s the real life that goes first. There’s no time for family issues or relationships or relaxation. You can’t really relax because every show closes, every job comes to an end and you have to find the next one. More work, a little sleep, another call across town and a quick meal. You get home to change clothes and grab some shuteye. And repeat.
I see fear in people’s eyes now. The cushion is getting smaller or perhaps has disappeared. The calls are fewer and after watching the news or reading their annuity statements, the prospects look grim. However fear is an emotion and not a fact. There is an ebb and flow to show business and to life and we need to keep that in mind. Watch out for people that are trying to play on your emotions, be they politicians, financers or commentators. The wealthy lose a bunch of paper money and it's a depression. Working folks lose their homes and it's a housing bubble. The multinationals that control the levers of power are jockeying for position with these bailouts and playing chicken with the financial system.

I have no idea where it will end up. I do know that we have more survival skills, street smarts. We had to have them in order to get by in the New World Order. Don’t buy what they’re selling. We’ll be alright if we stick together.

Opposing Viewpoints

Want to know what it's like to be in a television studio for a major news event? Imagine a whirlpool of corporate and political forces. Or black hole, that image will work also. For years and then months, weeks, days and hours, centrifugal forces built from a wide, gentle rotation to an intense tightening of spin. You reach the event horizon where there is not enough energy to reverse course. You're trapped. The spin builds to a point where either gravity tears you apart or you get sucked down and out the other side. You’re on the air.

One of the major drawbacks of being in this business is the distancing I feel from the audience and the illusion I help create. I know what goes into the making the images the public sees and doesn’t really see. I know what’s in the background and how it got there. Yet there are few viewers who really want to talk about camera angles, lighting and scenery. It’s like seeing the brushstrokes and not the painting. Knowing to much.

The election of Barack Obama may be a seminal point in US politics, a change I've wanted to see since the death of Robert Kennedy. However as the election campaign wound down to it's final days and there was electricity in the streets of NYC, I just wanted the damned thing over. There is a tremendous amount of effort that goes into the run up to these major media events that the public doesn't see, work that should go unaccredited, invisible and perfect. As someone who has been fortunate enough earn his living in a fascinating business, I've gotten accustomed to the long, intense hours leading up to going on the air or first curtain and the anticlimax of the applause. But like lawmaking and sausage making, to witness news making close up is to lose one's appetite for it.

The evening of the election, as I was getting teary eyed as the speeches were being made and the celebrations started, I also felt a little cheated. Exhausted to the point of apathy wasn’t where I really wanted to be at this moment in time.

And load out started in the morning.

Vanishing Points

Funny how one's perspective changes as one sees more of life. Being a child of the sixties, I've often felt that, as in the words of Samuel Johnson, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Not the real patriotism of the warrior fighting to protect our liberties, the outcast striving for social change, the one who works for the greatest good for the greatest number or the statesman but rather the false patriotism of the politician, the promoter of causes that only they profit from, the bigot, the zealot and to many other to name. Spare me the loud ones who seek to divide and conquer and inflict their views on me as being the only right one and all others are wrong. The flag wavers who have contributed little to life except to take. There are many countries, religions or organizations that have flags, both real and metaphorical, so don't assume I'm speaking solely of the flag of the United States. I'm referring more to scoundrels.

I was doing a job lately that was only bore a vague resemblance to one that might be considered properly prepared, the type we all have suffered through and indeed, at times, profited from. In this case, the US flag was on a staff USR. I was in a bucket 25" in the air which always allows one a different point of view on things. In the turmoil the flag got knocked to the deck. Not a big deal. But then the knocker proceeded to step back and forth, from US to CS and back, over the staff and flag. Now the staff had one of those tips you would find on a pike, rather pointed and was right at knee height, a physical danger. I had two reactions. A.) How the knocker could be so self absorbed as to continually step over an obstruction that he had created and B.) "That’s an American freaking flag you're stepping on, asshole." I didn't know the knocker and can presume no malicious intent. What struck me was my reaction to the scene. I was honked someone was walking on the flag.

How in deeply ingrained are reactions. People have fought for, suffered and died for the ideas represented by that piece of cloth. Call it the Boy Scout training in how to treat the flag but I get annoyed at buildings that fly the flag at night without lighting it or leaving it exposed so long it turns black and tattered. Burning that piece of cloth as a statement of protest is something that I don't have a problem with because, to me, that is less a piece of desecration than a affirmation of those freedoms embodied by it, a price for having freedom of speech. It's a desecration to ignore it or to abuse it. Don't dishonor it by letting it get ruined by inaction or because you're lazy or too stupid have an awareness of your own actions.

Isn’t life funny? I’m an old hippy getting annoyed with someone for stepping on the flag. Aristide Briand, a Prime Minister of France is reputed to have said, “a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head." Times change and because I don’t have a choice, so do I.

That's Real White Of You

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when the one voice of hope in a political campaign is a trial lawyer.

Now that John Edwards is gone, if you're poor, working class, a single parent, live in the wrong area of the country or just can't get a break, as far as this presidential election cycle goes, you're probably SOOL. While speaking kindly of him in tonight's debate, don't expect either of the Dems to really do much for the lower two thirds. The National Journal got some headlines and page views today with a headline that claimed that Obama was the most "liberal" Senator in 2007, ahead of Clinton. But it also noted "Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10."

40% of the population of New Orleans lived in poverty during Bush years. Or rather, most of the Bush years, preflood that is before they drown or had to flee for their lives. But in the 8 years of the Bill Clinton presidency, 40% of the population of New Orleans also lived in poverty. Rhodes scholar, maybe, friend of the working man, I don't think so. That giant sucking sound of jobs heading south still can be heard. There has been less a war on poverty than a war on the poor.

Here are two different web sites that graphically display what is happening in this country.

The first is from a site called Social Explorer . This map displays poverty levels in the US according to the US Census in 2000. Go to the pull down menu on the top right and toggle the 2000 census. Then go to the middle menu and go to the Poverty.

Now compare it to this map from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

Where are the fallen heroes coming from? Poor areas in post industrial US. Towns and cities that saw their jobs and industries shipped off to where labor was cheap, laws where easy and profits for multinationals are high. Men and women who would have had good union jobs now see their only way into the middle class is to risk their lives in the military in exchange for an education. It’s called an economic draft. This is not to say that they are not patriotic and don't believe in what they are doing. Their fathers and mothers taught them to believe in the American dream. It is a dream most parents were able to realize by working overtime. That option isn't available for many in places like the small towns of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, upstate New York or any of the other states that comprise the Rust Belt. Those factories are now polluting the Yangtze. The rapidly truncated Appalachians never really shook their poverty despite the efforts in the 60's. There are parts of South Dakota and John McCain's Arizona that skirt third world status.

There will be lip service to the lower two thirds tonight but neither candidates will really be speaking to the working and the poor. They'll be talking to the contributors. Again.
.

You design, we decide.

In my mind, the set I've just loaded-in is representative of the disconnect between the so-called information society and the rest of us. Framed out of tubular steel, it produces the illusion of being very slender while still being very strong. It's also been designed with a CAD program that is a marvel of functionality. It allows for 3D views, cut lists,cost estimates and multiple color combinations that the client can approve of without every leaving their office. It is also usually "drafted" by someone who is much more familiar with a hard drive than a drill press, with the language of software than the language of truck drivers. And when the lack of familiarity with the shop process collides with the computer process, it's the language of truck drivers that is heard the loudest when bolts holes don't line up. When the inexperienced doesn't account for the build up of welds when making joints, things can get loud and profane. It's the workman’s skill that makes the real the symmetry of the beautiful drawing on the dirty, sagging floor of the studio.

In my mind this typifies what is going on in much of the business and political world today. There are business school graduates running businesses who have never even watched people unloading the trucks in the business they're running and would never consider unloading one themselves. To them, a repetitive stress injury is an abstraction that only affects the cost of the health plan and not the reality of not being able to play with the kids after work because of the pain. Because of their income levels, politicians can relate in a real sense to tax brackets but only in an abstract sense to poverty levels because they have never felt the stinging isolation of being poor. Designers with MFA's who are breaking into the entertainment industry by doing computer drafting work aren't going to be able to relate to the shop carpenters or stagehands that are going to work the multiple 16 hour days it will take to build or load in the beautiful drawings.

To complain to the boss will result in some flippant remark about “that if I don’t like it here etc, etc”. At this point I know that his kid’s tuition has been paid for, his greens fees have been paid for and that he thinks that he’s probably immune to being fired. For the new designer, one can only hope that he or she acquires his or her skill without someone getting hurt because of the hacks required to make the illusion real.

As for politicians, I have a new rule of thumb. The candidate who has a net worth that is closest to mine will have my vote. I’ve had enough of Ivy League millionaires trying to tell me that I have to live my life according to their standards which they can apply to themselves at their discretion, meaning if they don’t get caught, it’s okay. The operatives of the two major parties seem to have less and less in common with the people they govern and are not working at improving the lives of the governed. They are skilled at fund raising from major donors, improving the tax code for the said donors and getting the government off “our” backs. By getting the government off our backs they really mean that corporations can have free run over the environment, workers, communities, our retirement system, our military, our health care, our education and then pit us against each other for their cynical ends. Here’s a radical idea. Lets bring the government back. Big badass government. A government that will take tax cheats to court, sues polluters, protects workers, gives us the health care we require, the retirement we’ve earned, the education our children really require and allows all of us to live in peace and prosperity. In the words of Lincoln, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

If It's In The Paper It Must Be True

In a Variety article, polls showing that the vast majority of Hollywood professionals feel that the WGA strike is losing cause.

"The town's opinions have budged a bit since the November survey on the question of whether the WGA's decision to go on strike was a "tactical mistake."

Among all respondents, 57% said no while 35% said yes -- not much different than the divide in November (57%-31%). WGA respondents are holding fast, with only 16% agreeing that going on strike was a tactical miscue.

But among DGA respondents, 42% now agree it was a tactical mistake, compared with 34% in November. Doubts among SAG members are also rising, with 25% agreeing that the strike was a tactical mistake, compared with 15% in November. Half of IATSE members are convinced the work stoppage was a tactical error, inching up to 50% from 47% in the November survey."

A lot of figures and percentages are thrown around as proof that the WGA strike is failing and creating a lot of hostility among other entertainment unions. According to Variety, half of all IATSE members are convinced that the dispute is a tactical error. Well, sorta. You see only 616 Variety subscribers responded and of that 616, 7% were IATSE members. So 3 1/2% of all the respondents who also happen to be IATSE members and subscribers thought that the strike was a "tactical mistake". And how many real people are we talking about? 7% of 616 is 44. So half of that is 3.5% or 22 people. Which means that in an industry consisting of hundreds of thousands of people Variety makes a statement that there is a large percentage of opinion against the strike and represents that "half of all IATSE members" are against it. The opinions of 22 PEOPLE now pass as consensus! Looked at another way, with it's circulation estimated at 31,000, Variety is making that statement based on the opinions of 0.07% of it's readership.

I'm not in the middle of the fight but from the outside, thats worse than sloppy, thats disingenuous. That's Corporate Media posing as a free press.

So Much For Holiday Cheer

Paul Krugman has an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times today.

But what really happened is that beginning in the 1970s, corporate America, which had previously had a largely cooperative relationship with unions, in effect declared war on organized labor.

Don’t take my word for it; read Business Week, which published an article in 2002 titled “How Wal-Mart Keeps Unions at Bay.” The article explained that “over the past two decades, Corporate America has perfected its ability to fend off labor groups.” It then described the tactics — some legal, some illegal, all involving a healthy dose of intimidation — that Wal-Mart and other giant firms use to block organizing drives.

These hardball tactics have been enabled by a political environment that has been deeply hostile to organized labor, both because politicians favored employers’ interests and because conservatives sought to weaken the Democratic Party. “We’re going to crush labor as a political entity,” Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist, once declared.

If the past is prologue then how did the body politic of the New Deal change into Neo-Conservatism? In a book published in 1995, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics Dan T Carter argues that the George Wallace tapped into the growing white backlash against the civil rights movement that was sweeping the country and blaming godless liberals for ruining our American values. Wallace, who consistently gathered favorable poll results of 8% outside the Deep South and gathered 30% to 43% of the votes in early primaries in 1968, represented a deep feeling of helplessness that many working and middle class Americans felt in the 60's. He also represented a threat to Richard Nixon's support among Republican voters. Nixon used an IRS investigation to force Wallace to run in the Democratic primaries instead as an independent, which would have drawn off Nixon voters.

While Nixon viewed Wallace and the sentiment he represented as a threat, Ronald Reagan saw this helplessness as an opportunity to restore and improve upon the Conservative Coalition that brought together the conservative Republicans with Southern Democrats and had ruled Congress from 1939 through 1964. The Southern Coalition was against Communism, atheism, unionism, liberalism and stood as a bulwark against the Civil Rights movement. When Reagan campaigned for President in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, he used the racist code phrase “I believe in states’ rights,” When he did, he picked up Wallace's flag in the city where civil rights workers were killed, using the language of the "Old South”, the money of supply side corporations and the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation with it's attacks on the "liberal media". Thus when Gingrich took over for Cheney as Republican House Whip in 1989 and with Reagan in the White House, the union movement was stopped in its tracks. The support unions had from the government in 1935 with the passing of the Wagner Act (NLRB) had turned hostile in 1939 with the Conservative Coalition and the passing of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. With Reagan and Gingrich, the conservatives and the business community were out to destroy organized labor altogether and roll back the Civil Rights movement.

Today it's not politically correct to openly racist but saying "damn, there sure are a lot of illegal immigrants, let's build a wall" " is perfectly acceptable. A wall for New Mexico and not Minnesota.

Today it's not politically correct to criticize the globalization of the economy, which sends American jobs overseas, but it is all right to blame unions for sending those jobs to places where workers can be exploited.

Today it's politically correct to support the troops in Iraq and be against the war while at the same time it not correct to point out that the majority of those volunteers who have been killed in Iraq come from the Rust Belt in the upper Midwest and the poorest sections of Texas, California, Virginia, Georgia and Florida. In places where there used to be jobs other than the military. Good union jobs.

That's enough for now. Have a better New Year.

And Now For Something Entirely Different

Over here on the Right Coast, we've got that whole New Yorker magazine cover thing going on. Things diminish in importance the get further away they get from the Hudson River. So one wonders about the whole WGA strike thing with it’s lack of progress in contract negotiations and the catfight that’s going on with all the unions out there. There’s a continuing turf war going on and somehow they seem to think that this is going to benefit organized labor in some way.

I drove through Los Angeles one day back in the early 70’s in a VW van on my way to San Francisco so I’m not really up to date on the subtleties of labor relations out there. But I have done a little reading about it. For an interesting historical perspective I can point you in the direction of a book called “Class Struggle In Hollywood 1930-1950 Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds and Trade Unionists”.

Another good book is Hollywood's Other Blacklist: Union Struggles in the Studio System . Neither one paints my union in a very flattering light but labor history is rarely as good as it’s painted nor as bad.

One side of why things are the way they are (at least with cartoonists) can be found in a recent post by Mark Evanier in the second “WGA Stuff” entry.

The other side is in a business article in the LA Times . It tells of the relationships and history of the Animation Guild the WGA and the networks.


In keeping with our self-criticism theme, here is a post with a view from the outside of the fray about certain labor leaders in Hollywood. In the Open Left Matt Stoller takes a dim view of the proceedings with When a Labor Union Goes Rotten It’s an unfortunate title since he’s talking about the leadership and not the 115,000 people, who make up the entertainment union.

You know, I feel like taking a shower.

The Medium Is The Message

Many in the business world or right wing nut jobs (not that they are mutually exclusive) would have you believe that unions are an anachronism of a past Industrial Age. Hate to have to tell you this but collective bargaining and action are alive, well and seemingly getting stronger.

First there was the recent unpleasantness on Broadway. The "New Economy" and its adoration of the investor met an old-line craft union. Generations of relationships with the direct employers and the people who make them their money were tossed aside in pursuit of short term profit by, in essence, the renters of the employers property. The Producers resented the symbiotic relationship required of everyone in the communal art form that is theatre. Wharton School of Business doesn’t have a theatre department, which would have taught the students that Gordon Gecko was a fictional character in an art form designed to create illusions, the movies. Or perhaps it’s a knee jerk reaction to the liberal part of liberal arts. But I digress.

For those “New Economy” folks, what has happened in Times Square this week could be even more foreboding than an old union winning a strike against concessions. The creative types that Viacom exploits to sell its teen oriented products got tired of being punching bags for the bottom line and took to the streets in collective action. The use and abuse of those employees defined as freelancers, part time, independent contractors or long-term temps is an aspect of labor relations that the “New Media” relies on. Workers are viewed as a drag on profits and a managerial headache. Not only are office workers not viewed as a valued employee or even as a human but rather a disposable component of a multinational whole.

On Monday Viacom and MTV employees demonstrated a new willingness to take on the boss when Viacom bean counters, chasing the corporate mantra of getting more for less, starting another round of swapping around benefit plans in order to get less for less. The result would be that these permatemps would have to wait even longer for benefits. Oh, and another new paper employer, Cast and Crew that would keep the workers at a legal arms length. This kind of employer is a service common in the entertainment business where events are short term affairs and the contractor allows the service to do the back office tax and payroll duties. Large corporations, however, use them as a way to avoid paying benefits and reduce their own back office staff. Contract Out Everything 101 is a freshman requirement at Wharton.

While the anger is real and the needs great, the lack of several generations of protest and organizing became evident at MTV. This generation may have music videos, the Internet and You Tube; the loss of schooling in the history of social upheaval became evident, as did the fear that controls the work place. Where the stagehands refused to talk to the press it was because of the their personal knowledge of how the press twists the truth to fit a preconceived message that the front office wants to hear (every go to a show in preview and then read the review?). The writers and animators and assistants where not giving their names out of fear of retribution. “You want benefits and job security? I can hire the next college kid that walks in the door who would love to work here. What are you some kind of troublemaker?” So they demonstrated on their lunch hour.

Freelancers Walk Out at MTV Networks

But it worked. They attracted a get deal of attention; keep the pressure up and Viacom caved.

MTV to Let Freelancers Stay on Its Insurance

Anyone from the Sixties could have told them they would. They would know that it is people on the streets that get attention and not this load that was issued by Viacom.

"As you know, we’ve been holding information sessions over the past several days to discuss our freelance and temporary employee benefits. We’ve had many insightful conversations and heard a number of your specific concerns.

As a result of the input you’ve given to us directly through the sessions and your managers, we want to announce the following changes:"

Information sessions, my ass. It was your employment practices in the spotlight that did it. Left to your own devices nothing would have changed.

With entertainment being the second largest export today and the inability of the owners to ship out the culture to Asia, the “New Media” worker today have much more untapped power than they are aware of. It’s not the bosses who allow workers to organize into a unit; it’s the workers decision. They may be digital mills rather than steel mills or cotton mills or paper mills but to office workers they are mills nonetheless. And where there’s exploitation, there’s going to be unions.
Freelancers Union

Rat-ification

I've been holding off posting anything about the strike and the contract until it was ratified. There is a superstition in the business that you don't talk about a contract until it is signed because you could jinx the deal. As with any superstition it is more about fear than reality.

Having gone over the changes there's positives and negatives that, unless you're really in the business and understand how we work, are probably going to be to arcane to go into. There are changes to work rules that at this point don't seem particularly practical but the League fought for them and got them. Changes to lunch hours, changes to rehearsal requirements, show staffing, load-in staffing and more. Some of what has been codified has been in practice for many years and the new crop of Producers were unaware of what they could do. There was chronic problem during the negotiations of the League not understanding technology and terminology. The role of the flyman in particular was difficult for them to understand. After several explanations of how shows physically load-in, the League's negotiators still kept trying to remove the role of the flyman altogether. Several times they wanted the flyman only come for the electrics prehang and do the points later, which is a little like wanting to have the drywall hung before the carpenters have put up the studs.

For me I think that the biggest change occurred when the local theatrical community stood together to protect itself. This clearly defined to me the need for members to have a strong involvement of their Local, not just in the negotiating process but also in the activities of the Local on a day-to-day basis. It is the members who really understand how their work happens and should control the voice at the table if progressive improvements and adaptive changes need to be made. Union administration needs to be from the bottom up if members are going to be protected on the job. The further an officer gets from the load-in door, the more their focus is going to be on getting the deal done so he can move on to the next task/contract. We in Local One were very fortunate to have officers that have day-to-day contact with members and venues and value their input. This wasn’t always true in our Local but that changed. Nor can I say that is true the further up the food chain you go. It’s important that the employers understand what happens to their employees and this can only be done when we negotiate for “our” terms and “our” conditions. Outsiders most often just muddy the waters or worse, have their own agendas.
So if you’re a member of a union, get involved. Join a committee, be it a negotiating, safety, pension or any of the others. Understand how the process works. If you want good people to run you Local, start by running it yourself. Bring the needs of the members to the union and not the needs of the union to the members.

We did it and it works.

Prop Man At The Last Supper

One of the best ways to demonstrate that the League has miscalculated Local One and it's membership was best summarized by a merchant on 46th St. He was reported to have said that by walking the picket line the members of Local One were working harder than they had in years. While this may have more openly shown the contempt that many of the aspiring nouveau and faux riche have for working people, it also demonstrates a lack of understanding of the inner strength that workers today need to have in order to survive today. They need that strength in order to survive downsizing and real estate inflation and diminished buying power of their wages and having their sons and daughters put in harms way. They need that strength in order to keep a household together when both parents have to work.

Walking a picket line with so many people and locations keeps a person from hearing all the stories of support given to the strikers but one story I heard stands out. At a meeting held the other day, among the things discussed was a need for volunteers in the office manning the phone bank. It was hoped to avoid a reoccurrence of the unfortunate loss we suffered earlier in the strike by protecting some of the older members from the inclement weather. As I’ve said earlier, we are accustomed to working in these kinds of conditions, unloading trucks and doing outdoor events but being in a union also means we protect our own.

There were no takers. The old timers felt that their presence on the line was more important than staying comfortable. Someone was quoted that being with my friends, protecting our jobs, keeps me warm.

So the League has gone to war with the stagehands over a philosophy of more. They need more flexibility, more profit and quicker returns to the investors, more latitude to do away with the way of doing things that they don’t understand the why or how the situation or job condition came into being. So be it. They weighed the profit and loss that was going to happen when they were knew there was going to be a strike or lockout and felt that the idea of more was of greater importance than a sense of community in creating an art form. And while they may share the contempt for working people that the hash slinger on 46th St. has, they also did not understand the soul of a union member. They did not understand the hardness it takes to get by in this world of diminished expectations, the fierce protectiveness of each other when threatened or our strength in numbers. This is not just stagehands I’m talking about. The whole theatrical community has come together because they know that they are probably next in the Leagues game plan.

Just be aware that you are taking on the young and fit and the old and hard. I suspect that was the fatal flaw in your plans.