Things are moving on a variety of fronts in the WGA strike.  While the AMPTP stalls and makes baseless charges, the Guild is trying some novel approaches.  Not only have they filed an unfair labor practices charge against the AMPTP for walking away from a good-faith negotiation, they are challenging the very idea of bargaining with a cartel like the AMPTP itself.

Confronted with a logjam in its contract talks with the studios, the Writers Guild of America is trying a new tack: Divide and conquer.

On Monday, the union representing 10,500 striking writers plans to approach the major companies of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers about negotiating with them individually, a move aimed at exploiting perceived cracks in the alliance and getting at least some of the studios back to the bargaining table.

“We want to do everything in our power to move negotiations forward and end this devastating strike,” the guild’s negotiating committee said in a letter to be sent to union members today. “The internal dynamics of the [alliance] make it difficult for the conglomerates to reach consensus and negotiate with us on a give-and-take basis.”

This approach is already bearing fruit.  David Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants Inc., has agreed to negotiate their own deal with the writers .  Because Letterman owns his program (as well as Late Night with Craig Ferguson), he can break with the AMPTP cartel and make this deal.

(I just want to step in and say that AMPTP.com is maybe the funniest parody site I’ve seen in a long time.)

But all is not well.  With the AMPTP furious over these cracks in their united front (some would call it collusion), they’ve leaned on some of their stars to return to work.

Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien will return to late-night TV with fresh episodes on Jan. 2, two months after the writers’ strike sent them into repeats, the network said Monday.

The “Tonight” show and “Late Night” will return without writers supplying jokes. NBC said the decision was similar to what happened in 1988, when Johnny Carson brought back the “Tonight” show two months into a writers’ strike.

A similar return – with writers – appears in the works for David Letterman. The union representing striking writers said over the weekend that it was willing to negotiate deals with individual production companies, including Letterman’s Worldwide Pants.

It’s disappointing that Leno and O’Brien aren’t willing to hold out and see the big picture, but of course they are under contract.  It’s telling that this move was made as soon as Letterman signaled his intention to strike a deal with the writers.

However, in contrast to this action, it appears that the writer’s strike is opening up eyes about what it means to work in this country, about what it means to stand together for worker’s rights.  The DGA, after flirting with starting negotiations with the AMPTP, has demurred.  The writers are promoting separate labor issues like the plight of FedEx workers being called “independent contractors” so management can avoid providing benefits.  And they’re aiding in significant victories for the worker’s rights movement.

In a memo issued this afternoon, MTV Networks performed a near-180, relenting to complaints from freelancers who were told last week their benefits would be cut. “We’ve implemented a process for evaluating freelance and temporary employee positions for possible conversion to staff positions,” reads the announcement from JoAnne Griffith, MTVN’s executive vice president for HR. “This process is currently underway.” Freelancers will now have the choice to continue with their current health plan-including dental!-or sign on to MTV’s Aetna plan. Either way, they won’t have to make the decision until February of next year, nearly three months after the original deadline set by the company last week.

The writer’s strike is one of the most high-profile labor actions of the last 30 years.  It’s crystallizing a lot of ideas about basic fairness for workers.  This is maybe the most positive by-product of this important action.

We learned yesterday that Chris Lehane used to do damage control for the corporation trying to limit PR fallout from massive health and safety violations while building the eastern span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.  He’s currently plying his trade as a paid shill for studios and networks who have the simple goal of busting the Hollywood labor movement.  

Writers, (WGA head Patric Verrone) said, were looking to restore a sense of leverage and status that had been lost as ever-larger corporations took control of the entertainment business. He described Hollywood as teetering on the brink of a dark age, as far as creative types were concerned. “I think if they could do this business without us, they would, and so making our task as mechanical and simple and low-paying and unartistic as possible,” Mr. Verrone said.

The solution, he added, was to squeeze the corporations that own the studios, in an effort to represent the legion of writers on reality and animated shows that the guild had not organized through sign-up drives […]

Accusing guild leaders of pursuing “an ideological mission far removed from the interests of their members,” representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expressed outrage over continuing demands of the writers that were not strictly related to pay.

These include requests for jurisdiction over those who write for reality TV shows and animated movies; for oversight of the fair-market value of intracompany transactions that might affect writer pay; and the elimination of a no-strike clause that prevents guild members from honoring the picket lines of other unions once a contract is reached.

The tone of shock in the producers’ statement seemed a bit artificial, as Mr. Verrone has for months laid out his plan to elevate the writers’ industry status.

This is the part where Lehane picked up the story and started writing it from his suite.

Yet their anger is genuine. Executives know that to concede the writers’ noneconomic demands would lead to a radical shift in industry power.

Riiight.  See, now it’s conglomerates 99.999999%, employees 0.000001%.  If you actually gave the same benefits to everyone who generates a script, whether they did so before or after the shoot, that would shoot up to .000009%!  That’s a 9-fold increase!

And the other complaint, that a no-strike clause would be a death knell to the business, is absurd.  This is a classic strategy of divide and conquer.  Forcing union members to work and not honor another union’s strike is an attempt at isolation and union busting.  This city’s unions don’t get along that well; often they’re competing for membership (IATSE’s leader just blasted the WGA because they have some animation writers in their stable and they don’t want to lose them).  Furthermore, on any given day 1 out of 3 industry workers are unemployed.  There’s already little incentive for solidarity, and the studios want to eliminate that even further.

Let me introduce you to a new word: permalance.  I know it because I’ve been one, on several occasions.  In no other business that I know can you be working for 40 hours a week at one company for several months and not be a permanent employee.  MTV workers just learned the hard way why conglomerates do this: because it gives you no leverage.

Scores of workers from MTV Networks walked off the job yesterday afternoon, filling the sidewalk outside the headquarters of its corporate parent, Viacom, to protest recent changes in benefits.

Freelance workers from MTV Networks outside the headquarters of the company’s corporate parent, Viacom, Monday.

The walkout highlighted the concerns of a category of workers who are sometimes called permalancers: permanent freelancers who work like full-time employees but do not receive the same benefits.

Waving signs that read “Shame on Viacom,” the workers, most of them in their 20s, demanded that MTV Networks reverse a plan to reduce health and dental benefits for freelancers beginning Jan. 1.

In a statement, MTV Networks noted that its benefits program for full-time employees had also undergone changes, and it emphasized that the plan for freelancers was still highly competitive within the industry. Many freelancers receive no corporate benefits.

In other words, you’re lucky you get anything at all, so STFU.

The media business has being playing this game for years, and because most of their employees are too young to know the difference, there’s been little outcry.  The WGA labor action is shining a bright light on the practices of this industry, which is a massive profit-maker globally.  At some point, you get sick and tired of being pushed around.

Disclosure: MySpace is paying for my travel

MANCHESTER-Following John Edwards and Barack Obama, tonight (7PM eastern) John McCain will be the first Republican candidate to participate in a MySpace/MTV interactive forum.

It should be an interesting night. On one had, New Hampshire’s same day registration provision allows candidates on both sides of the aisle potential for a youth surge not showing up in the polls — which could be a substantive boost in the expectations spin. For McCain specifically, he has been bleeding market share in the MySpace friends primary. I’ll be looking to the interactive perspective as it fascinates me. What do you think I should be looking for during the event?

Some pics, I’ll be posting live pics here:

It is cold and snowing:

Does the national political press demand lodging that includes multiple line phones no matter where they are doing business?

Ah…