Mediating the Strikes: Can Neutrals Help Resolve Hollywood’s Labor Strife?

Sign up for a free Beverly Hills Bar Assn. webinar I'm moderating on Friday. And subscribe to Puck, where I cover the ongoing guild and union drama.

Loading video

Federal mediators who parachuted in at the last moment couldn’t save the actors’ negotiations with the studios, and they had no luck with the writer’s strike 15 years ago nor with the Screen Actor’s Guild’s 2008 talks (although the union didn’t strike, it stalemated and worked without a contract for almost a year). But could experienced entertainment mediators do better?

Let’s find out. I’m moderating a free Zoom panel this Friday, July 28 at 10:00 a.m. PT for the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. Sign up now at http://www.bhba.org/mediatingthestrikes. All are welcome, lawyer and non-lawyer alike. California lawyers get 1.5 hrs. of CLE credit. And, there’s a pdf packet with over 180 pages of articles on the issues and materials from the Writers Guild, Directors Guild, SAG-AFTRA and the studio/streamer’s AMPTP alliance.

Joining me as panelists will be entertainment mediators Greg Derin, Joel Grossman and Angela Reddock-Wright, plus Professors Clark Freshman and Pamela Conley Ulrich. We’ll define and discuss mediation and Hollywood collective bargaining, then look at four key roadblock issues—basic wage increases, streaming video residuals, writer minirooms and AI—and see how they might be mediated. It’s an important panel for anyone concerned about the current Hollywood impasse—join us! And if you can’t watch it live, view it later on YouTube:

---

My writing on the writers and actors strikes now appears exclusively at Puck.news, a subscription newsletter. Learn more below, but first check out my reel.

Very pleased to announce what Puck readers have known for several months: I’m now a Contributing Writer at Puck.news, where my writing on the writers strike and Hollywood’s related labor unrest will appear exclusively.

If you’re not familiar with Puck, you should be—and if you’re not a subscriber, you should be. It’s a bouquet of email newsletters on America’s power centers: Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Washington, Law, Media and Fashion (ok, lack of parallelism: those last three aren’t places). You choose which newsletters you want to see in your inbox, and can read any and all online as well. Authors include my former Hollywood Reporter editorial director Matt Belloni, who heads up the Hollywood vertical; my former THR colleague Eriq Gardner, who writes about law (& Hollywood; & tech; & other things); and a host of other smart, interesting people.

All that for the reasonable price of $100/yr. Sorry / not sorry about the paywall. I know that for some readers that’s not easy money—while for others, it’s low—but here’s the thing: without monetization, writers and other creatives don’t get paid. We all knew that the Internet’s inaugural business model was a tease, and that model—”everything, everywhere, anytime, for free!”—has already driven a stake through the heart of many newspapers and magazines and left others with a hangover. So I hope you’ll subscribe.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been making the rounds as a commentator. You can catch up on my television, radio and print appearances—over 1,300 to date, including about 50 in the last month—by checking out the reverse chron list here … or just watch the reel above for a 3 min. sampling of my on-camera hits. Thanks for reading—and watching—and listening.