On the first day of the writers strike, Conover called out Warner Bros. Thats about the same level as what 10,000 writers are asking him to pay all of us collectively.
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DEADLINE:A lot went down in the past 24 hours.
How did it get to this, the writers striking today?
Adam Conover - negotiating committee memberDominic Patten
Are there really enough issues for us to go on strike?
But that turned out to not happen.
After last Wednesday, they essentially stopped making reasonable counters of any kind.
Whats going to happen at that meeting?
Oh hey, technologys advancing, AI is getting good.
See you next year.
So we thought they would say, this is easy.
It was one of the issues that they refused.
They didnt even discuss it in the room.
They literally said nothing about it.
Weve seen impacts on more and more work areas, SAG-AFTRA actors are dealing with it right now.
The only reason they would do that would be if they have a plan.
I dont know what their plan might be.
We knew obviously they were.
I think the public will hate it.
We thought they were going to make it hard for us.
And the shocking thing was, over the last three days in negotiations, they didnt do that.
They made it very easy by giving us nothing.
They didnt even do that.
Everybody in the room said theres nothing for me that theyve offered.
So yeah, lets go on strike.
They united the guild, and I dont know why they did it.
I think its terrible strategy.
But thats better than them trying to divide us, not that that would have worked.
DEADLINE:Do you think the studios are seriously prepared to talk about whats happening with streaming residuals?
CONOVER: We are going to make them be prepared to have that conversation.
All of those CEOs outsource theirlabordecisions to [AMPTP President] Carol Lombardini and her team.
Theyve got some little backroom deal of how much room she has to maneuver here.
So the point of the strike is for us to go out here and withhold our labor from them.
Because youre right, we need to have that conversation.
But the conversation is a lot more than residuals.
DEADLINE:How is this going all play out in your opinion?
CONOVER: Its entirely up to the companies how long were out.
We waited out the agents for a year and a half.
We forced these huge companies to make material changes to their businesses.
We have the power to do that to these companies.
Well be out here as long as it takes for them to realize that.
We can play that game.
We can wait as long as she needs because writers know that this is existential.
Do you see the AMPTP trying to play a similar strategy with the DGA?
But Carol Lombardini is very smart and she structures these things for a reason.
But the difference between 2007 and now, is in 2007 we were fighting for basically one thing.
In this case, the stuff that were fighting for doesnt even exist in the DGA contract.
One of the biggest things just take one of them is the preservation of the writers room.
The companies are trying to end the writers room.
So were fighting to preserve the writers room and get it codified into our contract.
That doesnt pattern the DGA.
Those dont exist for the DGA.
So, if any undercutting is going to happen, it cant happen on these issues.
DEADLINE:You have gotten strong support from the teamsters, IATSE, SAG-AFTRA.
And its in your best interest to fight back against them with us as hard as you possibly can.
