I’m so happy for them

[Image Description: Castiel from Supernatural is saying I love you, underneath is an image of Dean Winchester with the caption: “After four months of striking the WGA has a reached a tentative agreement & finalizing the contract. If all goes well writers will get to return to work with better pay and protections. They did it. Go unions”]

(Source)

I pointed this out in a Discord server I'm in and thought Id share here:

Bob Iger announced that Disney is going to absorb Hulu, and Hulu will no longer exist next year. All shows will move to the Disney+ app.

Disney also announced they were going to remove shows and movies periodically from their streaming services.

I believe both of these moves are because of the Writers Strike.

Disney knows its going to lose the strike. There is too much public support. Specifically, the WGA is going to win writers getting more residuals from streaming.

So if Disney takes shows off of streaming, they dont have to pay the writers the residuals.

They are going to use excuses like "not enough funding for the server capacity" or "not enough views to warrent keeping the show". These are BULLSHIT. Its all greed. Its only GREED.

Pay attention to what happens in the following weeks.

And keep supporting the writers' strike.

WHY THEY STRIKE: Sean Astin (SAG), Member of the SAG-AFTRA Negotiating Committee & Actor on Lord of the Rings

"They're paying us late. At Universal. And Warner Brothers. And Disney. And Amazon. And Hulu. And Netflix. Are you kidding me?" Sean Astin makes an impassioned speech on the SAG picket line. Today, August 13, 2023 marks 30 days since the start of their strike (July 14, 2023).

I think we should let Ron Perlman burn a house down. You know, as a treat.

Thanks @ingdamnit for bringing this to my attention.

Tapping the “If art cannot be made without abusing those that make it, I do not want it” sign vigorously once again.

Hello Tumblr!

Do you like bookstores? Do you like unions? Do you like bookstores having unions?

Answer yes to any of those questions, and boy howdy, do I have a call to action for you.

Half Price Books employees at several locations across the country have organized and, after months of being dehumanized by corporate lawyers, have finally reached the financial part of their contract! Hurray!

Except not hurray, because they are refusing to even budge on giving anything more than a pathetic 1% increase. And what’s worse, is the offer is actually a thinly veiled 6-7% pay cut, due to taking away quarterly bonuses that make up so much of the employees’ income.

There’s thankfully something you can do about it though! The unionized workers are partnered with UFCW, and they have made a website that has made it super easy to tell Half Price Books that you think their employees deserve a living wage.

The company has proven that it cares a great deal about its image, so any public support can give the bargaining employees a lot more power over their contracts. It only takes a couple minutes to fill out and any and all help is greatly appreciated.

If you needed a reason not to support the reboot of Totally Spies

Stock up on podcasts, movies you meant to watch, shows you missed; be ready and okay to not have new content for awhile, the strikes will delay your shows, movies you’re hoping for and more - I don’t want complaints aimed at anyone but the companies and execs that aren’t paying their artists!!

The fact that SAG-AFTRA has concessions in the strike for actors to attend cons for meet-ups/photos.

The rule is that they'd like to keep actors off panels to discuss particular projects because that's promoting stopped work.

But a LOT of actors, especially older actors, characters actors, and voice actors rely on the ability to do photo ops and meet-and-greets with fans for a good chunk of income.

So, good job on that, SAG-AFTRA. That's thinking of the 98% of the union who aren't multi-millionaires.

I am suddenly okay-ish with living in historic times

WHY THEY STRIKE: Ke Huy Quan (SAG), 2023 Winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once

Roughly 87% of members earn less than the minimum requirement of $26,000 yearly, making them ineligible for health coverage through the union. The studios' refusal to pay union members a living wage and share their streaming revenues via residuals has made this a difficult ask for performers nationwide. For reference, "in most jobs, that [amount] would be considered a part-time job," according to SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher.

We under value and take for granted artists as a society. I’m talking all artists…writers, actors, musicians, dancers, designers, painters, sculptors…the list is endless.

The commonality is that they all have either spent their time honing their skills through practice, lessons, education or all of the above. Artists dedicate their time and often their lives to their craft.

We are failing our artists. Symphony orchestras are failing across the US. Writers and actors are on strike. People involved in the fine arts are turning to independent sales. We need to shift our expectations.

We need creatives as a part of our society. What we don’t need is the expectation that artists should work for free or for a paltry income. Simply because an artist enjoys performing or creating doesn’t mean they should have to do so for nothing.

We also no longer live in an era where it is standard that the extremely wealthy build museums or libraries or fund performing arts groups. We live in an era of amassing extreme wealth for the minority of the population.

I get that profitability is important, but at what cost? Are we ok that artists can’t afford health insurance? Are we ok that artists are leaving our communities for other opportunities? Are we ok that companies are ready to use AI over humans for creative processes and performance?

I’m not ready for any of this. We will lose a significant part of our humanity by eliminating and discouraging the ability to thrive for artists. Change can be hard but change is what is needed.

We are experiencing the beginning of a labor revolution and it will not stop with our writers, actors, UPS drivers or Starbucks baristas. The peasants are fed up and the nobility needs to pay attention.

Support your local artists. Support independent artists. Support the striking unions and organizations. We can all play a part in creating a long lasting effective change.

#WGAstrong #SAGAFTRAstrong #Unionstrong #BeLoud

You know, when this whole AI art, deepfakes and other shit began, I was scared that the responsibility of convincing people that it can and will be used unethically would fall on the shoulders of small artists who would not be taken seriously. I expected change in the art world to be a slow, creeping transition into inevitable demise.

What I did not expect was hollywood studio execs doing that job for us by being so cartoonishly evil, impatient and releasing statements like "We're gonna starve you until you agree to work with us lol" and "We're gonna take your likeness and use it forever. You will be paid with jack and shit."

I also did not expect AI bros doing the same job for us by harassing a voice actor off of twitter.

Labor unions successfully organized more than 58,000 workers through the National Labor Relations Board’s election process in the first six months of 2023, a massive influx of workers on a scale that we’ve rarely seen before—but that we’re likely to see again. The 662 NLRB representation elections won by unions in the year’s first half covered a total of 58,543 workers, according to Bloomberg Law’s just-released NLRB Election Statistics report. That’s the second-highest first-half organizing total in this century. By itself, this statistic isn’t the surest measurement of labor strength; all it takes is one freakishly large election result to make a six-month period appear a lot more impressive than it really was. (This is exactly what happened in May 2013: A bargaining unit of nearly 45,000 already-unionized workers switched representation from one union to another through the NLRB election process, raising the midyear total to 67,687.) No such anomaly is present in 2023. The sheer number of union wins so far this year, surpassing even last year’s Starbucks-studded total, makes it plain that this current wave of organized workers is no fluke.

[Read the rest]