“fighting the good fight for people with skills the market doesn’t value as much as they thought”
can someone explain it a different way to me
Is that you "fighting the good fight with skills the market doesn't value as much as you thought?"
Or is it negotiating to find the true market value that you are willing to accept and the company is willing to pay for your skills?
If lots of people on both sides agree to a price then that really is market value.
But "the market" is often a personification of power, with powerful interests (sometimes hidden) working together to bend the market's behavior to their ends. When that happens, if we don't see that bias, thinking of the "market" as objective is a path to being manipulated by those interests.
In this case, the powerful forces are distributors and financiers who cannot operate without creative talent. The actual customers want the creative output, they have no interest in the logo at the front of the movie. So the distributors are powerful rent-seekers who would like to use technology to increase their share of the rent.
Studios can't just change their whole process overnight.
Revaluate this in a couple years, though, when new studios have popped up that can do the same work for a 10th the cost.
To be clear, my main doubt in that post is that this is a battle that can lead to a winning war. I am not at all opposed to it happening. Indeed, I support those that were striking. I can't but feel that there is a higher up meta battle that will be more high stakes.
Just last quarter they were bragging how the strikes were saving them money.
I legitimately don’t think the studios wanted to agree till they saw their next quarter numbers.
And I guess maybe I shouldn’t say “the studios”. They apparently had a couple holdouts in their corner which caused negotiations to take longer than the majority of the studios would have wanted
Note that I do think studios were more happy with the deal they had before the strike. I just don't think they are gnashing teeth at the agreement.
I therefore very much disagree with your gut feeling.
But I find the need for mustache twirling villains throughout the entire chain of the studio to be unlikely. (Note that this does not preclude that there could be some ridiculous personalities there.)
I'm not seeing any named sources on these quotes? Such that this doesn't change my prior, yet? To be clear, I fully expect there are some crappy individuals in the studios. But, having worked in big organizations before, it is trivial to get stupid quotes from middle management that somehow thinks they know the landscape completely.
Consider, the "top-tier" producer quoted with "late October, for sure" as what the intention was. And that was just the timeline for supposedly having talks... Clearly overstating their hand, there.
Seriously, they don't have a single named source there. Not even one that has a credible connection to actual leadership. This reads far more like people that have an inflated sense of self worth talking than it does those that are actually involved.
Again, I'm not claiming that they are happy that they are having to renegotiate. They certainly had better terms before. I just don't buy the "gnashing of teeth" narrative.
Who would have thought?!
That said, I have also gotten everything I've asked for from some deals, only to find I got somewhat taken. There are very real arguments that that is ok, and I confess I still don't feel bad in any of those situations. I can't claim that they don't exist, though.
OR you can recognize skills development in humans, who are social, who show repeated contributions of skill, talent, looks, actions, insights into written works or other human activity, and then recognize them with payment for their increasingly valued skills. You can also collect together and negotiate with them (publishing side), gather others with skill and negotiate (writers union) collectively, put value into items that only that individual can hold or make (personal items like letters).. and thereby deliver the OBVIOUS value that they bring, with bargained economic instruments.
When one side demeans, disenfranchises, belittles, avoids recognition of, uses dirty tricks to steal from, the other side, it looks pretty bad. Often this behavior is egged on by third-parties with only personal interest in mind, like for example, investors.. who might use their wealth leisure time to engage in some of these anti-social and/or criminal market behaviors.
When an entire class of people in a civilization, like perhaps talented artists, actors, illustrators, writers, and other creative, are threatened for their income and future wealth, and get detracted by investors in public.. that looks pretty bad too.. Perhaps some of that is a little like what is going on now in Hollywood, California and related industries.