Looks to me

Looks to me like the Hollywood writers have just lost their case. The studios offered about 80% of what they were asking, including a solid-looking reimbursement for AI theft. In normal negotiations each side starts by asking 20% more than they really want, so an 80% offer should end the strike.

The sticking point is a fine detail about staffing, which doesn’t look important from the outside. Not good for publicity, regardless of the internal needs.

An effective union must recognize the available exits for the opponent. You can’t try to block Exit 1 when Exit 2 is wide-open. In this case Exit 2 is abandoning the movie business entirely, which would be a net gain for the tech tyrants who own the studios. Tech tyrants are LBOing all the time, happily destroying businesses to generate tax losses.

When UAW made the same mistake in the ’70s we ended up with Toyota. Detroit was suffering in the ’70s, pushed on one side by crazy Nixon regulations and pushed on the other side by UAW’s inflexible demands. The carmakers picked up their tents, took Exit 2, and hauled ass down I-75 to non-union Tennessee.

= = = = =

Later and better thought: There’s a significant difference between the two products. Automobiles are big heavy complicated products that necessarily require giant factories and a giant chain of suppliers. Small companies have tried repeatedly and failed quickly.

Even before digital tech and the web, movies could be made and shown with a small set of equipment and no supply chain. A home camera wasn’t enough, but a fairly small studio could turn out high quality shows. This was true in the 1930s and it’s universal now. When the big automakers lost strength in the ’70s, no domestic maker even tried to replace them. If the tech tyrants get out of the entertainment business, the already strong small and medium producers will gain more ground, and the distribution channels via Youtube, Rumble, Spotify, etc, are already in place. The result will be beneficial for the customer.

I think it will also be beneficial for most of the writers and actors, maybe not for the superstars. The big outfits formerly offered security through inertia, but in the LBO world the security is meaningless. In smaller companies, each production is a much larger part of the company’s total output, so each employee has higher value. A smaller company is more cautious, less prone to the all-or-nothing Big Bet. GM or Paramount can spend a billion dollars on a stupid project which never earns any profit.
(I’ve experienced this big/small difference in textbook publishing, and it should also apply to other media.)