this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
45 points (72.7% liked)

News

23014 readers
7 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

They were among the hundreds of thousands of U.S. and Canadian film and television crew workers who were unemployed for up to 10 months because of strikes called by actors and writers, leaving a trail of evictions and family disintegration.

Crew members rallied to help one another and charities pitched in during the writers strike that began May 2 and ended in late September, and the actors strike that started in July. The actors reached a tentative agreement on Wednesday.

"The actors and writers are getting a lot of publicity but the crews are the collateral damage of the strikes," said Lori Rubinstein, executive director of mental health charity Behind the Scenes.

Crew members lost health insurance and broke into retirement funds. They saw relationships collapse and became isolated and depressed as, month after month, they went without pay and lost the rush of 70-hour work weeks creating shows that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to union leaders, counselors and over a dozen crew members Reuters interviewed.

all 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago

Strikes are caused by management. If the studios bargained in good faith there would be no strike. The studios could have agreed to the workers demands during initial negotiations, but instead they chose to put people out by dragging their feet for 10 months.

Every strike can be averted by bargaining in good faith, and making reasonable concessions in a timely fashion.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago

They're not collateral damage of the strikers, they're collateral of the same executives that dragged their assets thinking they would win.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

The article was written by Andrew Hay, a Reuters journalist and a likely NewsGuild member. It's a legitimate question as to why he chose to frame the issue as the fault of strikers and not their intransigent bosses.

The quote is from Lori Rubenstein, executive director of a charity for film crew mental health support. It's a legitimate question as to why she believes that the people her charity serves don't have the unqualified right to seek better treatment at work by striking.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like they need a stronger union.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The Directors Guild of America wasn't on strike.

Neither was the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

Maybe they should have been, in solidarity. And use their strike funds to pay bills.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

And yet these unions aren't going to blame strikers for the strike. Framing it as collateral damage from the strike as Reuters has chosen to do is explicit union busting.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay? I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because Joe Bufalino, a first assistant director who committed suicide, was in the Directors Guild of America.

And the unhoused Toronto production assistant who was taken in by location manager are both in the International Alliance of Stage and Theatrical Employees.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is that the fault of the strikers?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

I never said it was.

You said "they" needed a stronger union, and I took that as you referencing the crew members who were affected but not part of the SAG-AFTRA union.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Gee maybe they shouldn't be siloed off in their own unions when they all work in the same workplace.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago

Oh look the studios are trying to make the actors and writers into the bad guys again.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The crews often are. I don't understand why they don't have a union with reciprocal support agreements. I rememeber during the last strike the late night shows made agreements with the WGA so that they could bring their shows back if they performed no written material. That way the rest of the crews could get paid (and the actors weren't on strike so there was stuff to promote). It was either Colbert or Conan that literally filled time by spinning their wedding ring on their desk, just because they could pay people to film it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Conan handled the writers strike and this very issue so magnificently. We got Jordan Schlansky because of lack of content during the strike and he continued to pay idled employees personally out of his own pocket so that no one would lose a paycheck and no one felt pressured to "scab" to survive. A comedic master and a class act.