Hardcore Fi-Core: The WGA Clusterfuck Continues (or "Fuck Industry Unions")
Okay, so:
You all know that the WGA went on strike for a long time and it eventually got resolved in what can mostly been seen as only a bittersweet victory that was in its best moments, strictly symbolic, and at its worst, downright destructive (it was definitely one of the reasons my overtime was taken from me, my holiday bonus was marginalized, and eventually: the first of two reasons I was given when I was laid off in January).
But I hold no grudges, because the hits I took were subject to the same kind of greed the writers were - and still are - subject to. I agree that writers routinely get sodomized by people far less talented than them (namely: creative execs, D-girls, studio execs, agents, managers, directors, producers, and anonymous internet haters who not-so-secretly want to be them) and that this strike was a well deserved and completely called for “fuck you for fucking us” to all of those people, past, present and future. The thing about Alec Baldwin’s character on 30 Rock? It’s funny because it’s true.
But the strike also brought out some of the worst in the writers, specifically, the WGA leadership. The thing about the WGA is this: it’s not a “good” representation of Hollywood’s writing force. The majority of the members are the younger, the less experienced, and the less talented. More than a few have managed to squeak their way into the union without any real work to their names. And these people helped contribute to an angry, unreasonable “mob mentality” to the WGA’s dealings in the strike.
A few people just needed money to live, plain and simple (a hard thing to do in a strike). A few people respectfully disagreed with the WGA. A few people think it’s an organization that routinely favors the “little guy” and tends to fuck a lot of deserving people out of deserving credits - George Clooney being one of them*. You have to realize - credit is important not only for your career’s cache, but because it’s built into a contract: money. The difference between sole and shared credit can be anywhere from 10K to a few hundred thousand dollars…
So a few members of the WGA opted to go financial-core status: they give up everything but their health insurance and membership in name (including voting rights) to not participate in the strike. Once you go fi-core, you can’t go back - it’s a lot like renouncing your nationality. What does the WGA do?
They write an open letter to every member of the WGA listing every Fi-Core member in the union. Furthermore: they tell them to “keep them at arm’s length.” Yeah, that’s an “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. It’s a dangerous, non-negotiable, malevolent one. You would think that an organization meant to protect writers wouldn’t encourage isolating, borderline-McCarthyesque tactics against their own. But these are entertainment unions: they try to keep themselves an exclusive/talented lot, and shut down, disrupt, or cause hell for anything that isn’t involved with them. Unfortunately, they fail at the former almost as much as they succeed at the latter.
So who will come to the defense of the Fi-Core members now? Of all people, the AMPTP. And yeah, it’s funny. Externally, Fi-Core members absolutely appear to be pawns in a post-strike grudge match now. But the truth is that the WGA is in violation of labor laws and moreover, labor principles. They deserve to be sanctioned for this bullshit. Going Fi-Core is a brave thing to do, the WGA publicly outing them is childish and strictly vengeful. The Fi-Core members deserve proper NLRB defense, and even if it was the (rather evil) AMPTP who stood up for them, somebody had to.
*To be fair: Clooney has a history of re-writing better writers. He also did this on CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, which a guy named Charlie Kaufman originally penned from Chuck Barris’ book. Yet, still, COADM is one of my favorite films; it obviously turned out a bit better than LEATHERHEADS ever could have.