The 2023 WGA / SAG-AFTRA strike and other Labor Discussion

[mister d]

If people are striking at your local Starbucks, go somewhere else for coffee. Don't use the self-check to lane at the grocery store because, while it's "for your convenience", it also allows the store to not pay a union employee to run a register (if you have one or two items, fine, but don't bring your half-cart of shit there and do it all yourself). If you drive by a business where employees are on a picket line, show support in some way, even if it's just honking your horn.

Mister D likes this whole post.

[L-Jam3]

Sorry for you being caught in the crosshairs, DSafe.

As for Igor - didn't Disney JUST literally deleted a ton of programming as a write-off without letting it see the light of day? Maybe they should have, I dunno, NOT done that? Kept it around for just this moment?

Warner Brothers was a much bigger one. Batgirl, which was completed, was shelved. There were other projects where WB simply pulled the plug mid-stream, in some cases allowing the creators to finish if they were in the editing process (a sequel to "Scoob", which was a hit in our house, was one of them).

But, yes, the tax write-off benefits to Discovery Networks were viewed as more valuable to the company than releasing the actual content.

Yeah, fucking Zaslov was a bigger offender, that's right. Just penny wise/pound foolish.

Could someone explain this logic to me like I'm five?

So my baseline understandings is this:

1. Warner Bros/Discovery is a public company, so ultimately, the duty of the management is to raise the stock price.

2. The stock price raises when investors see this as a good company and moving forward, and even better if they are profitable enough that it pays dividends.

3. In the short term, if a company can run at a loss, it pays less in taxes, or even zero taxes, some of which it can carry forward.

4. But for the most serious of investors, the ones that make up the lion's share of a company's ownership, realize that tax liability is not that big a deal in the longer term. Big investors don't merely look at the profit and loss of a company, but rather its Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (commonly known as EBITDA). This is because those four elements can be somewhat manipulated to give an inaccurate view of a company's actual health. For example, a company looking at Earnings in and of itself could look like it is operating at a loss in the prior year, but its EBITDA would make in actuality show it was profitable absent these accounting sleights-of-hand. That's because a company can (completely legally) choose to mark more in Interest (on outstanding loans), Taxes (both Federal, State, and Local), Depreciation (viewed as an expense as the value of assets, both tangible like buildings, computers, and shit, and intangible, such as Intellectual Property like movie licensing, copyrights, goes down over time), and Amortization (where a company makes a big upfront payment of services, like $10MM for 10 years of advertising gets booked as $1MM a year for 10 years instead of all at once). The ITD&A therefore, are as a matter of course, artificial, so smart investors don't account for that in determining the actual cash flow of a company. So if a company has a high EBITDA, it would be more attractive, even if adding in its ITD&A makes it look like the company ran at a loss.

5. So Batgirl cost about $90MM according to a 15-second Google search. WB/Discovery said let's not release it, take at $90MM hit on our 2023 Taxes to hopefully lower it. So maybe WB/Discovery on Earnings runs at a loss.

6. But if they did release it, and say ran a smallish profit (even a shitty blockbuster makes $200MM in worldwide gross), that small profit makes the EBITDA go up, even marginally.

7. If that EBITDA goes up, wouldn't that make the company more valuable and the stock price goes up, which is literally the CEO's fucking job to do?

So what value is it to not release something at all?

[DSafetyGuy]

L-Jam, the real question is "how long is Zaslov's contract?"

Because he (or any CEO) is interested in maximizing their own money before they get golden parachuted out.

[DSafetyGuy]

Sorry for you being caught in the crosshairs, DSafe.

As for Igor - didn't Disney JUST literally deleted a ton of programming as a write-off without letting it see the light of day? Maybe they should have, I dunno, NOT done that? Kept it around for just this moment?

Warner Brothers was a much bigger one. Batgirl, which was completed, was shelved. There were other projects where WB simply pulled the plug mid-stream, in some cases allowing the creators to finish if they were in the editing process (a sequel to "Scoob", which was a hit in our house, was one of them).

But, yes, the tax write-off benefits to Discovery Networks were viewed as more valuable to the company than releasing the actual content.

Yeah, fucking Zaslov was a bigger offender, that's right. Just penny wise/pound foolish.

I would be stunned if all that stuff does not see the light of day in about 2-3 years when this strike is out of everyone's minds. They're always gonna need new stuff to stream and I'm sure they'll figure out the most profitable loophole to get it up.

[L-Jam3]

Kaitlin Byrd's tweet is legitimately despair-inducing.

[mister d]

I just really hope nobody yells at him in public. I recognize decisions that affect others can have ramifications, but they shouldn't have public ramifications that make leisure time a little less fun.

[A_B]

I just really hope nobody yells at him in public. I recognize decisions that affect others can have ramifications, but they shouldn't have public ramifications that make leisure time a little less fun.

My people did it, if you're talking about Zaslav!

[degenerasian]

my Walmart now has two self checkout areas. One for under 20 items and one for over 20 items. There are only 4 cashiers.

There are more self checkout "attendants" than cashiers.

[wlu_lax6]

Shelf-space is so important and a revenue center for grocery stores. I am amazed that older stores have not been retrofit to reduce the number of non-self checkout lanes. I don't have a particular store of choice, but only one routinely has most of the lanes open...and that is whole foods (Which I would think at this point would have gone heavy automation).

[Pruitt IV]

It is important to support unions because management is coming for everyone in every industry, and I mean everyone in every industry. People are being kept poor so they have to go to work. This is absolutely done by design by management. Unions fight management. Support them.

Somehow Unions are successfully portrayed as being enemies of the working people. If it weren't for unions, ten year olds would still be mining.

And I can just predict the backlash over on Fox and other outlets - "Fran Drescher has made tens of millions through acting, how dare she complain."

[Giff]

A couple of the Krogers around here have one where you scan and there's still the conveyor belt that moves the food down to the sacking area where there is typically someone there to bag them. I will typically only use self-checkout if I have a handful of items.

I learned California doesn't allow you to buy alcohol in the self-checkout line which led to a funny coincidence when I was in a Target out there last May. The only other lane open was three-deep with full carts and the alochol was all I was buying, so they told me to go to the customer service area where they could check me out. I was behind a lady asking about their return policy if she didn't have a receipt. There apparently were variables depending on the item which she had left in the car. They asked what it was and when she said it was an air fryer, I laughed out loud because I had just watched earlier that day on the plane the Target episode of Atlanta where Darius tried to return an air fryer to Target during mass looting and ended up carrying it around all day.

[Nonlinear FC]

(I'm pro-Union and 1000 percent behind the strike... But, man... Fran Drescher? Yikes. Maybe they are hoping her voice will annoy the fuck out of the opposition and force them to the table sooner.)

[sancarlos]

To attempt to respond to LJam’s post, (as you know) growth in the stock price is all about expectations for future growth in earnings. If he can add cash in the short run (by reducing taxes), and convince investors that cash will be redeployed to increase profits, the stock price could go up on that expectation.

As mentioned by others, evil toads like Zaslav and Iger don’t give a shit about quality programming- they only care about profits (which will drive their own personal incomes.) It sucks. In addition to treating talent like shit, I expect Zaslav to pillage TCM for parts, even though they have relatively low talent costs, there.

[mister d]

Personal wealth at their level isn't even a real number, its a good argument for far higher income taxes and for wealth taxes. They care about having $700MM rather than $600MM, but its just meaningless dick swinging for them and a real $100MM loss for the rest of the country.

[DSafetyGuy]

(I'm pro-Union and 1000 percent behind the strike... But, man... Fran Drescher? Yikes. Maybe they are hoping her voice will annoy the fuck out of the opposition and force them to the table sooner.)

Drescher was running against Matthew Modine for the union presidency in 2021 (the offices and election candidates are a who's who of people with name recognition - Gabrielle Carteris and Ken Howard were the last two presidents, and other candidates from that election include Joely Fisher, Camryn Manheim, and Anthony Rapp). There are two basic groups in the SAG-AFTRA union, with Drescher coming from the less popular side (to answer, low turnout). Carteris signed a shit deal last time around that fucked lots of retirees out of their health insurance, so there were concerns about Drescher coming from the same group. The shorthand is Drescher's concerns were for the top-end members while Modine wanted to take care of rank and file, so this strike negotiation is more complicated because there is some degree of a rift among membership.

[DSafetyGuy]

And this one is very important: Support unions.

UPS is about to go on strike. If they do, please use another delivery service, if possible. USPS is unionized. If people are striking at your local Starbucks, go somewhere else for coffee. Don't use the self-check to lane at the grocery store because, while it's "for your convenience", it also allows the store to not pay a union employee to run a register (if you have one or two items, fine, but don't bring your half-cart of shit there and do it all yourself). If you drive by a business where employees are on a picket line, show support in some way, even if it's just honking your horn.

I am not a union member. What I do for work (let's call it worker bee middle management) will never be unionized in my lifetime. But, I work with a lot of people who are in unions. A lot of my work is because of people in unions.

It is important to support unions because management is coming for everyone in every industry, and I mean everyone in every industry. People are being kept poor so they have to go to work. This is absolutely done by design by management. Unions fight management. Support them.

And to add on to this with something else that hit me...

Tell people who you run into that you will support them IF they strike. Tell the UPS guy who delivers to your house or office. Ask the Starbucks barista if her co-workers have talked about trying to union and let them know you support them if they choose to. People in these jobs are often among those living paycheck to paycheck. Your support matters and it may help give them the courage needed to make a very difficult decision.

[The Sybian]

It is important to support unions because management is coming for everyone in every industry, and I mean everyone in every industry. People are being kept poor so they have to go to work. This is absolutely done by design by management. Unions fight management. Support them.

Somehow Unions are successfully portrayed as being enemies of the working people. If it weren't for unions, ten year olds would still be mining.

And I can just predict the backlash over on Fox and other outlets - "Fran Drescher has made tens of millions through acting, how dare she complain."

I support the idea of unions in general and we owe enormous gratitude towards unions in advancing workers rights in the industrial era. They get a bad name from corruption in the 50s and 60s, including organized crime involvement. Then you have the GOP convincing working class people that anything that regulates or limits business owners is bad. I'll save that rant, I've typed it here enough. Another factor is that whenever there is a strike, it tends to disrupt the consumer or general public, and it's often perceived as the union's fault for calling the strike, rather than the business owner for not giving whatever benefits.

I do think some unions are bad, overly powerful or unnecessary. I still harbor a lot of resentment from my days conducting labor arbitrations with government unions. First, federal employees are the most protected workers in the country and they don't need unions. The 3 unions I dealt with, particularly the one that represented former INS agents, had way too much money and existed to exact personal revenge against specific managers or waste high level managers' time for the sake of being an asshole. You wouldn't believe the stupid, petty shit we had to defend, and fly people from around the country to sit there, even over things the union knew the government had no control over or ability to change.

[govmentchedda]

It is important to support unions because management is coming for everyone in every industry, and I mean everyone in every industry. People are being kept poor so they have to go to work. This is absolutely done by design by management. Unions fight management. Support them.

Somehow Unions are successfully portrayed as being enemies of the working people. If it weren't for unions, ten year olds would still be mining.

And I can just predict the backlash over on Fox and other outlets - "Fran Drescher has made tens of millions through acting, how dare she complain."

I support the idea of unions in general and we owe enormous gratitude towards unions in advancing workers rights in the industrial era. They get a bad name from corruption in the 50s and 60s, including organized crime involvement. Then you have the GOP convincing working class people that anything that regulates or limits business owners is bad. I'll save that rant, I've typed it here enough. Another factor is that whenever there is a strike, it tends to disrupt the consumer or general public, and it's often perceived as the union's fault for calling the strike, rather than the business owner for not giving whatever benefits.

I do think some unions are bad, overly powerful or unnecessary. I still harbor a lot of resentment from my days conducting labor arbitrations with government unions. First, federal employees are the most protected workers in the country and they don't need unions. The 3 unions I dealt with, particularly the one that represented former INS agents, had way too much money and existed to exact personal revenge against specific managers or waste high level managers' time for the sake of being an asshole. You wouldn't believe the stupid, petty shit we had to defend, and fly people from around the country to sit there, even over things the union knew the government had no control over or ability to change.

Strong disagree.

[Nonlinear FC]

I'd add that a lot of police unions are REALLY shitty and take a "protect the blue no matter what" stand that is just an awful look in a lot of instances now that cameras are everywhere and you can see

(I will temper that by saying bodycams are EXCELLENT and it is way better now because what was happening a lot prior to their existence was out of context clips that just showed the arrest and not all the bad behavior that led up to someone being bodied to the ground or whatever. If you want to see great examples of that, watch a few sovereign citizen arrests... the body cams versus the clips the from those being arrested from inside their car. FWIW, those people are the fucking worst.)

To your point about consumer disruption, I'm always annoyed when "fans" take the side of the owners in sports-related strikes. Those players absolutely don't want to strike, but there's a point where the rich fucking owners are just being unreasonable about contract negotiations. They know they have the leverage to just shut down the games and fuck the players over. Makes me see red when that shit happens.

[degenerasian]

Fans all think players are getting paid millions to play a game. How bad can it be? Of course that's all they hear about. They don't realize that more than half the players in any league make the league minimum.

They can get behind nurses for example since nurses aren't making much more than they are and can relate to their struggles.

[A_B]

Well, the league minimum for the three big ones in the US is at least 750k. That's decent, even knowing you'll likely only get a few years in the league if you're that type of player. It does go up with each year of service in most cases, though.

[DSafetyGuy]

It's been going on forever. Be sure to hit "show more".

[DSafetyGuy]

Well, the league minimum for the three big ones in the US is at least 750k. That's decent, even knowing you'll likely only get a few years in the league if you're that type of player. It does go up with each year of service in most cases, though.

A few things that are never mentioned that go hand in hand...

The wide, wide, wide gap between the step below the top athletic league and the one immediately below it.
The age the average career ends... without ever hitting the top athletic league... or the one below it... or the one below that...
These retirees have been prepared for absolutely nothing resembling a second career during that first career.

[L-Jam3]

And I can just predict the backlash over on Fox and other outlets - "Fran Drescher has made tens of millions through acting, how dare she complain."

This is the bad-faith argument that the Cons use that angers me even more than whataboutism. They’re basically saying that if a person becomes successful due to the confluence of talent, hard work, and luck, then they lose the right to advocate people in their same group who haven’t. I think back to the shitbags that some said something to the effect of “how can Colin Kaepernick complain what’s happening to black people when he makes a lot of money and he was adopted by white parents?”

Take their argument to a logical conclusion, no one who has a roof over their heads could advocate for homeless people.

[The Sybian]

And I can just predict the backlash over on Fox and other outlets - "Fran Drescher has made tens of millions through acting, how dare she complain."

This is the bad-faith argument that the Cons use that angers me even more than whataboutism. They’re basically saying that if a person becomes successful due to the confluence of talent, hard work, and luck, then they lose the right to advocate people in their same group who haven’t. I think back to the shitbags that some said something to the effect of “how can Colin Kaepernick complain what’s happening to black people when he makes a lot of money and he was adopted by white parents?”

Take their argument to a logical conclusion, no one who has a roof over their heads could advocate for homeless people.

I think it goes with the Conservative mindset, they think of themselves first. If they have something, they would never think to fight for someone else to get the same thing, just bitch about having to pay for someone else to get it. Even if everyone else paid for them to get it. Once they are through a door, they want to close it behind them and preserve their possessions. They can't understand that other people don't think that way. [broad overgeneralization]

[degenerasian]

And I can just predict the backlash over on Fox and other outlets - "Fran Drescher has made tens of millions through acting, how dare she complain."

This is the bad-faith argument that the Cons use that angers me even more than whataboutism. They’re basically saying that if a person becomes successful due to the confluence of talent, hard work, and luck, then they lose the right to advocate people in their same group who haven’t. I think back to the shitbags that some said something to the effect of “how can Colin Kaepernick complain what’s happening to black people when he makes a lot of money and he was adopted by white parents?”

Take their argument to a logical conclusion, no one who has a roof over their heads could advocate for homeless people.

I think it goes with the Conservative mindset, they think of themselves first. If they have something, they would never think to fight for someone else to get the same thing, just bitch about having to pay for someone else to get it. Even if everyone else paid for them to get it. Once they are through a door, they want to close it behind them and preserve their possessions. They can't understand that other people don't think that way. [broad overgeneralization]

It's all about hard work and who 'deserves' things with conservative. I remember Don Lemon was interviewing Morgan Freeman once and asking about how blacks weren't proportionally represented and the fight to be represented. And Freeman's response was simply. "Bullshit, you're sitting here. You made it. Other's just aren't as good as you. Pull up your boots!"

[DSafetyGuy]

As mentioned by others, evil toads like Zaslav and Iger don’t give a shit about quality programming- they only care about profits (which will drive their own personal incomes.) It sucks. In addition to treating talent like shit, I expect Zaslav to pillage TCM for parts, even though they have relatively low talent costs, there.

Just wanted to note that they did re-hire a couple people at TCM, so the candlelight got a little stronger there.

[DSafetyGuy]

Also, it's not "content".

It's a movie.

It's a TV show.

It's not a generic catch-all term that devalues both the product and the people who envisioned and made it.

[Pruitt IV]

Also, it's not "content".

It's a movie.

It's a TV show.

It's not a generic catch-all term that devalues both the product and the people who envisioned and made it.

Nice.

Not making sausages, creating what is at best art, and is at worst something that requires craftsmanship.

And further to the John Cusack tweet above...

Harry Potter Pic Loses Money Because Of Warner Bros’ Phony Baloney Net Profit Accounting

As one dealmaker tells me: “If this is the fair definition of net profits, why do we continue to pretend and go through this charade? Judging by this, no movie is ever, ever going to go to pay off on net participants. It’s an illusion to make writers, and lower-level actors and filmmakers feel they have a stake in the game.”

[DSafetyGuy]

In case you think it's going to end with writers, actors, and now producers...

[DaveInSeattle]

[mister d]

"It would be funny if they lose their homes and/or get heat stroke."

[DSafetyGuy]

The good news is Universal is less than a mile from Residuals. It's a bar where you can (or used to be able to) bring a residual check and exchange it for a drink (one per person).

[tennbengal]

[DSafetyGuy]

He knows better than me...

[DSafetyGuy]

[tennbengal]

Is that "Notice to Comply" gonna require them to magically grow the branches back?

[Ryan]

Someone who just took two studio tours last week could tell you that they have fake trees and bushes by the hundreds

[mister d]

Euphemism alert!

[rass]

Someone who just took two studio tours last week could tell you that they have fake trees and bushes by the hundreds

Hot Merkin Summer