As the Hollywood writers’ strike entered its 10th week and actors were preparing to join them — in their first dual work stoppage in 63 years — studio executives screamed the quiet part out loud in an unusually clarifying manner.
“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” an anonymous executive told Deadline. According to the news outlet, an industry insider affirmed this approach, calling it “a cruel but necessary evil.”
Deadline further reported that the studios and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the trade group that negotiates for them, “believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.”
Big corporations — and bosses broadly — know the control they have over their workers’ lives, and they’re very happy to use it to keep those workers down. Last week, they accidentally admitted it. (We’ll note the AMPTP later refuted the comments, saying their member companies “are committed to reaching a deal and getting our industry back to work.”)
