The Hollywood Reporter gives its take on the "Hobbit" dust up.
Will entertainment workers of the world unite? Probably not any time soon.
They just tried, and it blew up in their faces. ... In the end, the entire fracas redounded to the benefit of the government and Warner Bros. Under an "urgency" procedure, the legislature passed in a single day laws that put all Kiwi film (and videogame) workers effectively beyond the reach of the unions. ...
As more and more U.S. movies and television programs are made in other countries, studios are determined to limit guild influence as much as possible. ...
One thing that Hollywood labor organizations didn't count on was losing the political and public relations war in a major way. But lose it they did, because people are frightened and hunkered down, and big movie companies are feeling their oats.
And living by the motto: "Never let the fallout from a global recession go to waste."
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6 comments:
Actually the workers of NZ did unite. They saw that a big job was about to leave their shores, so they all got together and signed petitions, talked to members of parliament and in general moved with force to try and keep the production in NZ, thus allowing hundreds of film workers to stay employed. If I was an NZ film worker, I would have supported those measures too.
We have 8 years of gNOp "leadership" under bush and dick to thank for this.
NZAE was a unit of an Australian union, the MEAA? Why did they think this job action was a defensible position? Why would I think a labor group in Canada would/should help me keep my job in the US? Why would I expect the US public to side with a foreign-based organization in my argument to keep jobs in the states?
Gee, I guess a top-down attempt at forcible unionizing from a continent away didn't work. Hmm, the peasants revolted. Who could have predicted it?
Wonderful. We have two thoughtful comments from independent thinkers (Anonymous #1 and #3) and someone who seems to represent the typical angry union member with comment #2. Enlightening.
Everyone should learn from California and just raise taxes until it becomes absolutely impossible to make a buck in this state. It's a perfect plan.
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