Saturday, June 23, 2007

IA 695 meeting and discussions

Went to the quarterly union meeting today and was saddened by the turnout.  We didn't make quorum, so it ending up being an informal gathering.  No business could be conducted.  Though we had lively discussion on a few subjects for over 2 hours.  One interesting thing was a brief mention on the looming contract negotiations between the Producers and the Writers Guild. The possibility of strike being the most feared outcome of those negotiations.  Several members feel that it is all talk and they will come to an agreement, while others are shouting "save your money, we're going down".  I'm trying not to buy into the fear of strike movement at this point, as I see that many productions are going on business as usual.  The fear was that production companies would start to stockpile shows in order to have a backlog of material when and if the strike happens.  In years past, this has created a 'de-facto" strike, as the strike never happened...the backlog of shows caused a long pause in production.  The end result was the same thing, many folks didn't work because of the backlog.  It seems to me that this is not happening this time, which could be good if the parties reach an agreement.  If they go on strike, the whole town will feel the heat.  I for one hope everyone holds their head up and comes to an agreement.

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