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Add an EventAt mass rally Writers Guild leaders attempt to lull strikers to sleep
For the most part, the writers, actors and others present were offered empty slogans and hollow phrases, or worse. The Democratic Party’s Jackson told them that “too few control too much.” He said, as he has been saying over the past 20 years as workers have seen their jobs and living standards undergo devastating attacks, that “the American dream is worth fighting for.” He told the strikers “to keep hope alive.”
Jackson is something of the Grim Reaper of the US labor movement. During the 1980s and early 1990s, he appeared on countless picket lines, encouraging illusions and helping the AFL-CIO bureaucracy to isolate and impose management’s demands in strike after strike. His presence is one of the most serious warning signs that the writers’ struggle is in danger.
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“The critical issue is being paid. If they get paid, we should get paid. Musicians get paid for writing songs and authors get paid for books sold. When we write material, we expect to be paid. We’ve been being paid since 1960. They’re trying to do away with the residual system. They’re trying to crush the guild. They’re trying to break the unions. We’re the sacrificial lambs.
“If they can break us then they can break the Screen Actors Guild, they can break the Directors Guild, we have to all be in this together. All we want is a fair share. Last year, in DVD residuals, they paid out $56 million of DVD residuals on $16 billion of sales. And $56 million to 10,000 writers, say. When Tom Freston was fired at Viacom he was given an $84 million severance package. And they’re saying they can’t afford to pay us $56 million.
“I think it’s greed, and the fact is that there are six major corporations that control all the media in this country. And I think this is all in line with George Bush’s America, which is basically a return to some sort of feudalism where you’ve got the landed gentry and the rest of us are serfs. I think that’s the philosophy, but that philosophy is guided by greed.
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