The Writers Guild of America has retained veteran Democratic political consultants Bill Carrick and Kam Kuwata to provide assistance on the strategic and PR fronts of the 8-week-old strike.
"We both have friends in the WGA," Kuwata told Daily Variety. "And we have landed a lot of times on the sides that are pro-labor."
The duo came aboard earlier this month at the guild's behest in the wake of the Dec. 7 collapse of negotiations between the WGA and the AMPTP, which insisted that the guild remove half a dozen proposals from the table as a condition of continuing to bargain. The WGA refused, and no new talks have been scheduled, while the Directors Guild of America is widely expected to set a start date for negotiations on its contract within the next week.
Kuwata said he and Carrick will work for the WGA for as long as needed.
Carrick ran the Angelides campaign and Kuwata has worked a lot with DiFi in the past. But at least that they understand that Democrats stand with workers, unlike Chris Lehane. I'd rather reject that corporate money and be on the side of those who just want their fair share.
Here is the problem with Chris Lehane going to work for the studios for me. Working for Democrats and Democratic causes means we are working to improve the lives of the many not the few. Going to work for these massive media conglomerates is the opposite. We are for people not profits. Unfortunately Chris Lehane has done this before and rather likes working for corporations. The huge piece of research on the Chris Lehane blog starts off with this quote:
"I like dealing with CEOs. I like taking strategies and tactics we used in the White House and applying them to the corporate world."
Chris Lehane decided that he was going to work for the huge movie studios and television companies and work to bust the union during a strike. You just don't do that as a Democratic operative. It is incompatible with Democratic values and impossible to justify. The studios were the ones who walked away from the negotiating table. Look, there is no way I and others would not be this riled up about a Democratic operative simply taking a gig working for any old corporation. It is the union busting that is an enormous problem. Undermining solidarity during a strike is the cardinal sin.
Now under Lehane's direction, the studios are attempting to divide the WGA membership and they are not being subtle about it. How else to describe the counters they have up on the newly redesigned AMPTP site. I first spotted them on a LAT banner ad. If you notice, the second banner is about the IATSE, whose leadership has not been supportive of the writers. They are modeled after the ones on the United Hollywood blog.
(Notice that the TNS survey they are crowing about on the top of the website is a "internet" survey and has absolutely no statistical value.)
This is part of a pattern of behavior from Chris Lehane, which Jane picked up on at Fire Dog Lake, but I want to pick up on the section titled: Lehane and the Bay Bridge Welders. It illustrates quite well Lehane's disregard of workers. This time it was not over being paid a fair wage, but over the worker's basic safety.
Last post on this today I promise. This is new information and California specific. Courtesy of Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake I have this quote from Anastasia Ordonez at the California Labor Federation. Jane called them to inquire about the status of Chris Lehane's contract with the Fed on health care and passed it off to me, given the California angle.
He's been a close labor ally for many years, so we're looking into this but I'm not going to comment on what our relationship will be in the future.
Ordonez stated that their contract with Chris Lehane was terminated around Thanksgiving, because they were not sure what they were going to do with regards to health care. That makes sense, since the health care negotiations were ongoing, rather than completely falling apart and there was not a huge need to have a guy like Lehane around.
The California Labor Federation maintains a blacklist of contractors for situations like this one, where someone goes to work directly against the labor movement. They can only add someone to that blacklist if a Local requests it. WGA is not a member, therefore they cannot make that request.
SEIU has been much closer to the WGA than the members of the Labor Fed and AFL-CIO, thus it is not that surprising to see them moving more slowly than Change to Win and SEIU.
The California Labor Federation is the state AFL-CIO, with more than 1,200 affiliated local unions, representing 2.1 million union members in diverse communities and sectors of the state's economy. Manufacturing, service, retail, construction, public sector and private industry unions join together in the Federation to protect and advance the rights and interests of all California workers.
Having the Fed put Lehane on the blacklist would obviously be a pretty big deal. If they do, I will be sure to blog it up.
