Okay, so I embellished the quote a bit, but not by much. If you check out this cleverly-titled article, you’ll see that while individual members of IATSE (the crew members’ union) support the WGA strike, IATSE itself might not. At least not completely.

It seems that the head of IATSE, Tom Short, is not only telling Patric Verrone (WGA’s prez) that he made a bad choice by going on strike, but that he warned him of the implications over a year ago. Short actually told Verrone that the studios would stockpile scripts and speed production up to counteract the effects of the strike. Verrone’s response, “Nonsense.”

Short further goes on to tell Verrone that one of his right-hand men, negotiator Dave Young, is “incompetent and inexperienced” in dealing with Hollywood contracts (which is true, Young’s previous experience was as a union organizer for the garment industry) and that Young is causing “irreparable damage  to this industry at a time when we can ill afford [it].”

Wow… simply wow. I had initially said elsewhere that sometimes I wondered if the WGA, after months of negotiations with the AMPTP (the producers’ guild), went on strike just to save face. Now I’m starting to believe it’s true.

Posted on November 15th, 2007 by Enrique
Filed under: Opinion