Support for writers’ strike outrages Hollywood elite

Remember Howard Stern railing against Les Moonves, CBS top exec? Guess what that POS is up to now?

Support for writers’ strike outrages Hollywood elite

By David Walsh
9 November 2007

It’s likely that the support so far received by the 12,000 striking film and television writers within and without the entertainment industry has surprised studio executives; it has certainly outraged them. They have already begun taking steps aimed at demonstrating their power over the livelihoods and careers of those directly or indirectly at their economic mercy.

Wednesday the Los Angeles Times reported that major studios, including Fox, CBS, Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros. and NBC Universal, had begun sending out letters to television production companies, which they largely finance, suspending “scores of long-term deals.” The studios rely on these companies, which vary widely in size, to come up with new ideas for television shows. “Under multi-year deals,” according to the Times, “studios such as Warner Bros., Walt Disney Co., and 20th Century Fox pay for the salaries, the office space, the project development costs, even the utilities whether these entities generate hits or not.”

<snip>

What infuriates Moonves and the other Hollywood moguls is the audacity of writers and their supporters among actors, directors and producers to resist the conglomerates’ vision of the future of the entertainment industry. Having apportioned for themselves the vast majority of the income from sales of DVDs over the past two decades, the studios have every intention of claiming an even bigger proportion of the present and future wealth generated by the Internet and other new media. In this they are responding to pressure from shareholders and the “market”; they are also driven by a determination to add to their vast personal wealth.

In Moonves’s case, driving down the living standards of his employees, increasing profits and thus improving the picture for CBS on Wall Street is directly bound up with his own enrichment. He signed a new contract in October 2007, according to the New York Times, which “bases his compensation heavily on the performance of CBS’s stock. The new contract, which extends Mr. Moonves’s employment by two years to 2011, lowers his base salary to $3.5 million from $5.9 million, but stipulates that he will also receive a large one-time stock option grant to purchase five million shares, as well as a large grant over four years of restricted shares worth $7.6 million a year. Mr. Moonves is also eligible for a performance-based bonus.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/writ-n09.shtml

Gropenator. They want him to cut deals to help them. Remember, dispite Hollywood's "liberal" image, it is still a business, no different in their desire to make tons of money, just like Exxon/Mobil and Citigroup.

When you close off one venue, it explodes in another. Moonves is not being too smart here. Petty, spiteful, but not smart.

When labor stands together, labor wins.

I advocated for all the locals to synchronize their contracts - on the theory that "when labor stands together, labor wins". Even the other locals called me looney.

I also advocated for training in new technologies, an improved system for insurance and fairer pensions. The BA's thought 10 cents an hour was a better deal.

It is a business. Studios are corporations. It is politics. (And I loved the work & am grateful
to have been involved in it for so long).