Even though we won substantial gains, neither the mobilizations during negotiations nor the strike itself were well enough prepared, in tactics, infrastructure or leadership development. This time around, he says, more attention needs to be paid to member training, strategic planning and the building of alliances. But only if we seize the massive opportunity now before us. And, frankly, that's pretty iffy. Among the myriad Hollywood myths is the notion that the creative guilds are powerful organizations with a long and storied history of striking and bringing the industry to heel.
Reality is considerably less dramatic.
That transition, say veteran unionists, would require the guilds to rely much more on hard economic research into the restructuring carried out by their employers and, more important, to forge ever closer relationships with organized labor at home and abroad. We have to move away from the narrow narcissism that has prevented us from taking our rightful place in organized labor, which has allowed the rest of the movement to dismiss us as pampered poodles. This puts him in the odd, conflictive position of negotiating down his sizable profits as producer as he tries to raise the rates of writers. WGA executive director John McLean, likewise, has spent most of his career on the other side of the table, serving for twenty years as a labor relations manager for the networks. To its credit, the current WGA leadership came to office pledging less obeisance to the producers.