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WGA Targets DVD Revenues When the Writers Guild’s contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expires in May 2004, getting a bigger share of the DVD bonanza will be a cornerstone of the union’s bargaining position, even though studios historically have taken a hard line against sharing DVD profits, writes James Bates in the Los Angeles Times. The union also wants to expand its jurisdiction to reality TV shows and boost studio contributions to the guild health fund.
“
What is clear to everyone — writers and employees alike — is
that we will be negotiating in an exceedingly prosperous new atmosphere.
It is a prosperity we helped to create and whose benefits we deserve
to share,” said a recent letter to WGA members, signed by Victoria
Riskin, president of the guild’s west division, and Herb Sargent,
her counterpart in the east. Despite a national economic slowdown, the domestic box office has grown from $7.7 billion to $9.5 billion, and DVD revenues have grown from $1.4 billion in 1999 to $11 billion last year, with writers receiving only $18 million in residuals. LA
Times 12/16 |
Variety
12/15 | NY
Times 1/7 |
Variety
1/6 |
WGA Press Room 1/6 Schwarzenegger Unveils Workers’ Compensation Plan Spurred by complaints from business leaders concerning huge increases in workers’ compensation costs, Governor Schwarzenegger proposed significant revisions to California’s workers’ comp system in December. Under the Schwarzenegger plan, injured workers would lose the right to be treated by their own doctors unless their employers agree to it. They would not be entitled to benefits if their occupation is responsible for less than 50 percent of their injuries. Injuries would have to be objectively verifiable through X-rays or range-of-motion tests or other exams. Medical treatment would be based on a doctor’s definition of “necessity,” rather than whether treatment provided the injured worker with “cure and relief.” A new system of “independent medical review,” in which outside doctors never see the injured workers, would resolve disputes over treatment, writes Andy Furillo in the Sacramento Bee. ‘ Runaway Production’ Takes Backseat to CA Budget Problems Hollywood’s anti-runaway production coalition isn’t pressing Arnold Schwarzenegger for help these days. Though the Governor expressed a desire during his campaign to keep production in California, his attention is focused on cutting $1.9 billion from the state budget and persuading voters to approve measures that would borrow $15 billion and put a cap on spending. State Senator Sheila Kuehl, often involved in show business legislation, believes the best that can be hoped for is reviving the nearly gutted California Film Commission and its now-shuttered Film California First incentive program, writes Dave McNary in Variety. New Medicare Plan Invites Privatization, Says Sweeney Congress gave final approval in November to a bill that would help millions of older Americans buy prescription drugs. President Bush immediately signed the legislation which promises the biggest changes in Medicare since its creation in 1965. “ Senate approval of the partisan Medicare drug plan is a major setback for the 41 million beneficiaries of the program,” said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. “When seniors learn more about the plan’s details, they will demand an explanation from their representatives who supported this inadequate plan. It should be no surprise to see seniors expressing their anger at the polls. Congress has fundamentally undermined the security of the Medicare program with a drug plan that provides giveaways to private insurers and opens the door to privatization of the entire program.” Senior citizen advocacy groups fear that the new prescription drug benefit, which relies solely on yet-to-be-created private plans, will undermine existing benefits for millions of retirees, while providing only meager relief to those with high drug costs. The benefit will pay a percentage of drug costs, but Medicare beneficiaries will be responsible for monthly premiums and a deductible. NY Times 11/26 | AFL-CIO Press Release 11/25 Survey Shows Labor Not Sharing in Economic Recovery President Bush’s highly touted economic recovery is proving unkind to workers. Output is clearly rising, which normally would feed into both corporate profits and labor income. But while profits have shot up as a percentage of national income, reaching their highest level since the mid-1960s, labor’s share is shrinking. Not since World War II has the distribution been so lopsided in the aftermath of a recession, writes Louis Uchitelle in the New York Times. “We have never seen in the 40 years that we‘ve had this hourly wage survey, wage growth that has been this slow,” said Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “ Workers, after all, are also the nation’s consumers,” adds Uchitelle. Many “are counting on their spending to turn the recovery into a first-class expansion. They must do that against the dead weight of reluctant hiring and miserly raises. For a generation, we have permitted labor’s bargaining power to deteriorate. Successive administrations — Republican and Democratic — have abetted the deterioration. Only in vigorous booms, like that of the late 1990s, have workers been in enough demand to give them bargaining power.” Supreme Court Upholds Campaign Finance Law The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the most important parts of the McCain-Feingold Act, a landmark campaign finance law designed to restrict the influence of money in politics. The decision keeps the current fundraising rules for the 2004 presidential and congressional elections, continues to restrict unregulated “soft-money” contributions to political parties and federal candidates, and prohibits certain television and radio “issue ads” by unions and corporations right before elections.
Candidates, political parties and advocacy groups using regulated
hard money to pay for their ads can run them without restrictions.
Organizations
using soft money for ads cannot mention or depict a candidate
within 30 days of a primary, a provision that will kick in
state-by-state, or within 60 days of a general election nationwide,
writes Glen
Justice in the New York Times. International Human Rights Day Observed Marches, rallies, press conferences and hearings in honor of America’s workers were held across the country on December 10, International Human Rights Day. The AFL-CIO hailed the events as “unprecedented” and stated in a press release that “Democratic presidential candidates, political as well as civil rights leaders and major human rights advocates stood with workers in over 90 events in 38 states to protest employers’ routine violation of workers’ freedom to form unions, and to pledge to strengthen U.S. labor law.” A top priority for organized labor is to lobby Congress to enact a law making it easier to unionize and to draw attention to tactics companies use to defeat unionization drives. The proposed bill would increase penalties on employers who fire workers for supporting unions and would allow workers to choose a union by signing cards instead of holding an election, writes Steven Greenhouse in the New York Times. NY
Times 12/11 |
LA
Times 12/11 |
AFL-CIO
Press Release 12/10 |
AFL-CIO News Analysis 12/10 White House Offers ‘Compromise’ on Media Ownership Rules The White House endorsed rolling back a June Federal Communications Commission ruling with legislation that would place a permanent 39 percent cap on the national television audience that a single network can reach. The compromise represents a substantial shift by the administration, which has repeatedly threatened a Presidential veto of any effort by Congress to tamper with the FCC decision relaxing the limits on how many stations a network can own, writes David Rodgers in the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, opposition to the FCC’s media consolidation rules continues. Nearly 2,000 activists, lobbyists, journalists and educators from across the country attended the National Conference on Media Reform held in November at the University of Wisconsin. Organizers called the event the largest ever of its kind and a testament to a widening sentiment that agencies such as the FCC have failed to ensure diversity and localism in the media. Speakers included Bill Moyers, host of the PBS news analysis show Now, who stated: “The founders of this country believed a free and rambunctious press was essential to the protection of our freedoms. They couldn’t envision the rise of giant megamedia conglomerates whose interests converge with state power to produce a conspiracy against the people. I think they would be aghast at how this union of media and government has produced the very kind of imperial power against which they rebelled.” Opposition to the FCC’s media ownership ruling has been the focal point of a three-week, 13-city all-star rock and roll tour called “Tell Us the Truth,” featuring Tom Morello, former guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, and fellow musicians Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Lester Chambers and Boots Riley. The tour aims at educating the nation on the perils of media consolidation, focusing on radio and Clear Channel Communications, which owns a majority of the radio stations in the country. FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein joined the musicians in front of an audience of 1,100 in Washington, D.C. The FCC commissioner-as-folk-hero is the peculiar byproduct of the battle over media deregulation, as a once obscure policy issue has become a topic of debate on college campuses, writes Jennifer Lee in the New York Times. Wall
Street Journal 11/25 |
NY
Times 11/25 | Chicago
Tribune 11/9 | Now
with Bill Moyers 11/26 |
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