AMPTP: All Psy-Ops, No Negotiations

(The piece below comes from a WGA member who would like to be known as "Red Sox Fan.")

The Ol' AMPTP Mindf*ck�

Has anyone noticed a pattern in the last couple weeks' worth of negotiations?

Monday is energetic and everyone's buoyed by the residual anger from the way last week ended. Tuesday there's a sense that they're "really talking." But by Wednesday, there's a creeping sense that nothing good is actually happening.

And on Thursday, the companies do the AMPTP Mindf*ck�.

First, it was the New Economic Partnership. This week it's "we're going to take our marbles and go home. Which means you can't play because we own all the marbles."

As all military thriller writers know, these tactics are known as psy-ops, or psychological operations designed to weaken the enemy's will to fight. The AMPTP Mindf*ck� happens just in time to ensure a jolly weekend of Christmas shopping with your children. Too bad little Timmy will cry unless you turn your back on your principles and get him the new DVD of "Transformers." And it's heartbreaking to have to get a smaller tree this year.

We can look forward to more of this in the weeks to come. Each successive move will aim to hit a little harder, each intended to drive a wedge between various groups within the Guild membership as well as between the membership and the negotiating committee. TV writers vs. feature writers. Upper class vs. middle class. David Young vs. freedom, milk, and clean air.

If we stick together and keep picketing -- and maintain our poise and our sense of humor -- these tactics will continue to fail. At some point the large institutional investors who own gobs of stock in the companies are going to say, "Like hell you're going to torpedo two seasons of television. We are not going to stand by and watch you lose a billion dollars so you can save one hundred and fifty million."

At that point, the real bargaining will begin. But the AMPTP Mindf*ck� will continue. Look forward to the day when they make a proposal that's not very good for most writers but would be good enough for some key members of the negotiating committee. That's when they'll get their new PR firm -- you know, the ones who handled Bill Clinton's "Monica Problem", and helped spin for a company sued for poisoning its workers who were then fired for complaining about it -- to tell the world that certain "crazy idealists" and "bitter militants" (i.e., Patric Verrone and David Young) are destroying this industry.

So be prepared, and recognize it for what it is. They want strike fatigue to set in, so we take a sub-par deal just to feel the relief of being done with the AMPTP Mindf*ck�.

Resist strike fatigue. Resist the AMPTP Mindf*ck�. Because, let's face it, once we go back to work, it's back to the Development Mindf*ck, and the Late Payment Mindf*ck, and the Didn't Your Agent Tell You We Found Another Writer? Mindf*ck.

See you on the picket line Monday.

Go Sox.