Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where The Terminator Goes On Strike

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey everybody and welcome to unlearn 16 class is in session today you just get

00:00:09.140 me i know it's a letdown after vanessa was here last time but nonetheless i can be slightly

00:00:15.940 entertaining um what am i going to focus on today well i have to focus on what's been a very

00:00:22.980 significant piece of news that has gone on between last time and this time since we spoke which is

00:00:29.320 the actor actress and and writers strike so the SAG strike that has now been voted on

00:00:37.940 so that at this moment in the United States and Canada and other parts of the world

00:00:44.800 actors actresses and all writers associated with that union are now on strike done not doing

00:00:54.960 anything pushing back against the actual industry. So today I'm going to talk about it. Today I'm

00:01:02.080 just going to take a minute to talk about a few different elements, the elements that I understand

00:01:07.620 so far, because let's be honest, I don't understand it all yet, but I'm going to correct that. Don't

00:01:13.080 you worry. Let's talk about what I know. And then hopefully you guys can ask questions. You guys can

00:01:20.840 add all sorts of perspectives in the comments below because I'm going to take it to LA next

00:01:27.880 week, guys. I'm going to go right to LA. I am going to, through my other social media accounts,

00:01:34.560 through this podcast, I am going to go interview as many people as I possibly can to understand

00:01:41.780 this strike from their perspective because I think that's incredibly important. So let's get

00:01:48.820 into it. First and foremost, I didn't understand who was sitting on the other side of the table.

00:01:56.520 So on one side, you have the Screen Actors Guild union, SAG, the actual union itself, right? I get

00:02:05.740 that. I get the people that are working. What I don't understand on that avenue is how there are

00:02:14.140 union sets. There are non-union sets. And in Canada, for example, and I don't know if this

00:02:21.720 works the same in the States, there are sets that have to be a certain percentage of union and then

00:02:27.040 can be a certain percentage of non-union actors. Number one, I have a problem. I'm going to set

00:02:32.080 that aside for a second because I'm going to tell you my problems in a little bit. And yes,

00:02:36.300 I do have a lot. But let's focus on what they're demanding. So on the other side of the table,

00:02:42.220 There's some ridiculous acronym. I don't understand what the acronym stands for. 0.65

00:02:46.360 But in essence, the other side of the table sitting across from the union, the actors union, are the studios.

00:02:53.840 And the studios, from what I understand, and I am going to go into this much, much further and in more detail as I learn more, as I talk to more people,

00:03:03.240 are pretty, it's pretty much encompassed or includes about 10 people.

00:03:09.020 about 10 people who have the money, the capital, the control, the ownership of everything on the

00:03:19.540 other side of that fence. I'm going to listen, guys. I'm going to find out who the 10 are. I'm

00:03:26.200 going to break it down. I'm going to talk about their money. I'm going to talk about their private

00:03:30.040 islands. I'm going to talk about all of it so we can get an idea of who's sitting on the other side.

00:03:34.440 I grew up a union kid, right? My mom was a nurse forever. She was then the nursing president of

00:03:41.080 St. Mike's. I understand the importance and the foundational roots that a union provides

00:03:47.800 and fights for for an entire society. I understand that. But I always understood who my mom and who

00:03:54.360 the union was negotiating against or with, depending on which kind of group you got, right?

00:03:59.920 On the other side of the table was sitting the hospital. And above that was the government,

00:04:05.600 because in essence, they are government employees, right? So I get that. I get the

00:04:11.800 management on that side. It's the management on this other side that I'm a little fuzzy on.

00:04:18.280 Okay. So you have the actors on one side. Now, what are they asking for? What are their demands,

00:04:24.540 right? What is all of this about? Well, I'm going to give you three of the basic demands that I

00:04:29.500 think encompass the most important parts of this strike. Number one, cost of living, period.

00:04:37.200 Guys, there's nobody on earth that would be sitting there thinking somebody shouldn't get

00:04:42.600 a cost of living wage increase. Everything has gone up, right? Everything has gone up.

00:04:50.280 So why on earth a union wouldn't be fighting for cost of living wage increases beyond me?

00:04:56.000 But that's the minimal thing, right? The two bigger, from what I understand so far, the two bigger driving forces, the bigger demands are these.

00:05:07.060 Number one, residuals as they pertain to streaming sites.

00:05:15.220 Now again, understand, I don't get all of the intricacies, but for example, Netflix, Hulu, Crave, Prime, Amazon, they don't pay residuals to actors directly.

00:05:31.840 Those residuals are still coming from the studio as a part, I'm assuming, of a deal the studio made with the streaming service.

00:05:42.160 And the reason why this hasn't been sorted out already is because last time they did their contract, this wasn't a thing.

00:05:50.360 How can you negotiate for something that doesn't quite exist yet?

00:05:54.320 Nobody really knew what streaming was going to look like.

00:05:56.680 Nobody really knew how much it was going to take over everything else.

00:06:01.860 And here's the bigger issue.

00:06:05.040 They made a deal.

00:06:06.460 So the studio made a deal with the streaming services for the studio to make X amount of dollars.

00:06:12.040 But what I understand to be true is that there's no real way to measure, and this is super important,

00:06:20.220 There's no real way to measure how many people are viewing certain things on, let's say, Netflix accounts.

00:06:29.760 Of course, there is ways to measure.

00:06:32.060 It's just not transparent.

00:06:37.080 It's not clear.

00:06:39.780 So that's the number one issue.

00:06:41.160 And now, knowing what streaming services are like, knowing how many people, myself included, are watching things like Grey's Anatomy and Gilmore Girls and House and Buffy 50,000 times, that money goes nowhere but back to the streaming service.

00:07:02.560 It does not go to the actor. The difference there being, if your show was replaying on ABC or NBC or whatever, you would get a residual check pertaining to the exact number of times that that show replayed. And that amount of money was being brought in.

00:07:23.320 right so if you're thinking about something like i use netflix but we can talk about any streaming

00:07:29.140 service when you think about that there are shows that are bringing people into it that people are

00:07:34.120 watching again and again and again but that was bought outright to the to the actual studio with

00:07:40.420 no consultation no connection no um no awareness and no input of the actors who actually produced

00:07:52.680 and created the show. Because let's be honest, I mean, all those people that are involved,

00:07:59.460 we are obviously very much drawn to the actors, right? Now, what we're also ignoring here,

00:08:06.340 and I don't know as much about this, and I promised you when I go to LA next week,

00:08:10.620 these are the questions I'm going to ask. When we talk about a strike this big, it is affecting a

00:08:16.420 huge group of people, right? What about the cast? Not just the cast, not just the acting cast. What

00:08:24.160 about the props guy? What about set designers? What about costume design? How do all of these

00:08:32.400 other people play in and how are they being treated by the broader set of working conditions

00:08:38.880 on a set. There's a lot of rules, let's be honest, that movies and TV break. The workday, for one,

00:08:48.400 the workday for these individuals is completely different. Now, is it for shorter periods of

00:08:56.120 time? Sure. But they could have 12, 13, 15-hour workdays. The rules are different. The per-hour

00:09:05.240 thing is different, right? All of that changes. And so one of their big fights is we need

00:09:12.000 language. Of course you do. Of course you do, right? We need language that clearly delineates

00:09:21.700 what an actor's rights are within the confines of this new world of streaming,

00:09:28.540 within the confines of this new world of online entertainment, that you don't need to access a

00:09:35.880 cable channel. You don't need to watch a commercial, which is obviously a big money issue. You don't

00:09:41.240 need to access and watch a commercial in order to get to your show. All of that is brand new,

00:09:47.600 relatively speaking. I don't think we quite understand. We as the consumer are sitting

00:09:52.320 back going, I love it. I can watch whatever I want to watch whenever I want to watch it. First

00:09:55.980 of all, I feel overwhelmed by it all the time, but we're not taking into account how incredibly

00:10:02.960 damaging and disruptive and transformational that is to workers' rights and their negotiations at

00:10:13.960 the table. So that's number two. Number three, oh, you're going to love this one. I know a lot

00:10:20.040 of you have already heard about it anyways, but AI. And AI, it's a slippery slope. And this is

00:10:29.900 where I think the lion's share of work needs to be done. But I don't really see, I see mountains

00:10:36.800 of work ahead of us in order to accurately define, discuss, and understand the reach of AI,

00:10:46.100 the implications of AI, and how you still keep people attached to their, you know, their creative

00:10:52.100 integrity and their personhood attached. So here was the offer of the studios. And they said this,

00:10:58.340 by the way, with pride in their voice, which is asinine. Background actors get paid next to 0.98

00:11:05.400 nothing, quite literally, not even close to minimum wage. Okay, they get paid nothing.

00:11:12.820 They're on set all day. It is necessary grunt labor that get paid horrifically. And they're

00:11:24.120 all taking it on the chin because this is their creative business. This is who they are. And

00:11:32.020 being on set, you would start to learn what goes on set. You become a more educated actor.

00:11:37.280 you understand the way tv works movies work commercials work this is it this is the way

00:11:43.720 that this is the work you need to put in and in my opinion that's why they take next to nothing

00:11:49.280 and by the way next to nothing guys so here's what the union here's what the studios want to do

00:11:58.700 the studios are looking to save money obviously and one of the ways they're looking to save money

00:12:03.820 is by, for all intents and purposes, completely and utterly eradicating the financial and physical

00:12:12.380 need, the financial cost and physical need of background actors. So their offer was this.

00:12:19.300 Background actor is going to come in for one day. We're going to pay you $300

00:12:21.960 for that day. We are going to take a 360 scan of you and your facial features and your mannerisms.

00:12:31.220 and I, you know, as many points of, you know, context that you can possibly get them in.

00:12:37.800 And then, heaven help us, the studio then owns that image, you. The studio owns you

00:12:48.760 in perpetuity. That's a very fancy word that means forever. The studio owns you forever. So,

00:13:01.220 and and the language isn't clear the language isn't clear if it's just a bank that the studio

00:13:06.660 so that one studio so let's say mgm called in a bunch of people they paid them out and then mgm

00:13:12.900 if they paid me 300 owns me and my likeness and can use it forever now are there a bunch of levels

00:13:22.500 to this of course there are but their goal is that their goal is that now be very um sort of

00:13:32.500 clear in understanding this they're going to present that as the thing they want i don't

00:13:39.060 think they think they're going to get it but i think the studios just like any other negotiation

00:13:43.540 you want to go as far and hard in the paint as you possibly can so when you pull back a little

00:13:48.420 bit to your actual point to your actual offer it looks like you've made an accommodation it looks

00:13:54.980 like you've made a compromise okay because if MGM took my 360 do they own me for that movie

00:14:04.740 do they own own me for any movie that MGM is ever going to use because that's that's kind

00:14:11.700 of the argument here that's kind of the argument and i'd go further than that honestly i really

00:14:19.220 would because these 10 men are sitting behind you know some sort of pay no attention to the

00:14:26.260 man behind the curtain veil i feel as though there'd be some crossover i don't see this 0.96

00:14:33.860 this group this group is a monopoly it well it's not a monopoly it's a freaking cartel 0.95

00:14:39.540 Well, isn't it? When different companies that are supposed to be in competition together

00:14:47.600 against one another, Universal versus MGM versus Disney, who's going to make the best product,

00:14:53.920 yet they all sit down and decide how to create a contract for the most significant or one of the

00:15:04.980 most significant, because obviously there's all sorts of crew on a movie and a TV set.

00:15:09.840 One of the most significant aspects, because they do it for everybody else,

00:15:13.240 and they have commonality about how you get hired in the rules and the payment,

00:15:20.080 yada, yada, yada. Because I have this horrible feeling that you have Sony over there,

00:15:27.420 Bob over there

00:15:29.760 Iger, right?

00:15:31.740 You have Universal over there

00:15:34.100 Warner behind me

00:15:35.380 And they're all going to say this

00:15:36.920 We all

00:15:39.080 Just want to never pay

00:15:41.740 For a background actor again

00:15:44.420 It'll save us all so much money

00:15:46.480 So Sony

00:15:47.800 You get a chunk of them

00:15:50.320 To get their

00:15:51.300 You pay a chunk of them

00:15:52.480 They're 300 bucks a day

00:15:53.620 And get their image

00:15:54.400 Universal, you pay a chunk of them

00:15:56.600 Disney, you pay a chunk of them.

00:15:58.320 And then we'll have this huge database of people we own that then, let's be perfectly honest, you can buy and sell and trade.

00:16:10.240 Right?

00:16:11.040 Do we not see this as being a legitimate agreement?

00:16:15.360 It's kind of like, you know, I always thought this about gas companies.

00:16:19.000 You go up to different gas stations, which are supposed to be individually run.

00:16:23.300 Why is their price always the freaking same?

00:16:26.600 they've decided they're a cartel they're they're a informal monopoly that pretend as though they're

00:16:36.040 in competition with different interests however they're all benefiting over the set bar that they

00:16:44.600 have created and stood behind that's how i see the other side of this table right and if you want to

00:16:52.840 distribute a movie you can a lot of people like we'll go make an independent movie listen i can

00:16:57.160 get a camera and go make a movie right now where am i going to play it how am i going to get money

00:17:03.400 from it assuming i want to make a living at it because everything youtube included is owned by

00:17:12.120 these 10 guys that's where all the money is that's where all the access points are now do i think

00:17:22.040 we're on a precipice of something different yes i think we are i think and that's what this strike

00:17:28.360 really is about and i hope that the actors really understand and the writers really understand what

00:17:32.520 they're pushing here because it's not just pushing for them we are on a precipice of something

00:17:37.640 completely different because of social media because of the way the internet works because

00:17:45.000 what's going to have to happen is those 10 people are going to have to decide they will shut down

00:17:52.280 the internet if they don't get what they want if they don't get that control if they don't manage

00:17:59.160 to negotiate what they want to negotiate right because at the end of the day guys a lot of people

00:18:07.960 control that access but for how long why do you think so many people are so afraid

00:18:19.320 of different internet sites of different sources of access to information

00:18:27.240 to creativity to all of those things what happens then

00:18:31.400 I think they're terrified. Absolutely terrified. And obviously, their bravado and their disgusting

00:18:44.520 level of entitlement is spilling out all over the internet. And everybody has probably already

00:18:49.960 seen Ron Perlman's response on TikTok or social media, where he says there is one executive,

00:18:57.820 and I'm pretty sure I know who it is, but we're going to talk about that.

00:19:01.400 Little later, there is one executive out of those 10 who had the audacity to say out loud,

00:19:08.800 not if it would be heard, but so it was heard. He said it so it would be heard.

00:19:19.700 Something to the effect of, we will drag this out until these people start losing their homes

00:19:28.940 and we can crush them. Saying that out loud and then hearing Ron's response, which if you haven't

00:19:40.580 seen Ron Perlman's response to that, it really was genius and empowering. Saying that out loud

00:19:47.880 is one thing. Mumbling that, saying that's how you want to fight this fight. But he didn't say

00:19:52.420 it like that. He said it so it would be heard. He's not trying to be secretive. He's trying to be

00:20:00.200 as big of an entitled billionaire bully that he possibly can be. He doesn't think there will be 0.89

00:20:12.780 any recourse retribution he can't even envision because they're that short-sighted he can't even

00:20:22.940 envision another way of being because he's been in this position and has established such a level

00:20:30.220 of power and economic and to be honest cultural control that this kind of thing is just gonna

00:20:38.780 wash. He has money so he can ride it through, but he knows that the majority of the people in this

00:20:44.980 industry do not. And he knows there are way more people. And I really want to get to this. There

00:20:53.060 are way more people in the world of acting that live much like I live, right? If I didn't have a

00:21:01.520 job for a month, who pays my mortgage? No one. They live paycheck to paycheck. They are working

00:21:09.680 actors. They are working crew. They are working writers. They need consistent work in order to

00:21:17.700 maintain a home, food on their table, their kids in school, all of those things the rest of us do.

00:21:25.060 now just so we're aware I want to be real clear on this stat I would argue and actually I am going

00:21:35.200 to underplay it I would say that 10% of the acting world will be and can be just fine through this

00:21:46.240 because they have achieved a level of and they've worked for it make no mistake about it I am not

00:21:52.820 taking away of what they've worked for, but they have achieved a level of economic freedom based

00:21:59.860 on their accomplishments in this industry. If this goes on a long time, they will be fine.

00:22:07.440 Now, will they be doing what they love? No, but they will be okay because they've worked hard

00:22:12.360 enough and brought enough, like all of the aspects that go into making somebody that level of a star

00:22:20.180 and that level of a, and in a lot of cases, that level of a workhorse.

00:22:26.220 And they've done that all and managed to achieve that level.

00:22:30.240 That 10%.

00:22:31.580 And by the way, it's an overestimation.

00:22:35.220 90% of people in this union cannot survive economically a strike lasting very long.

00:22:45.320 90%.

00:22:45.920 And that's who that executive was talking about.

00:22:50.180 He's not talking about, you know, hundreds of, you know, a guy worth hundreds of millions

00:22:57.620 of dollars who's been in blockbuster after block, but he's not talking about him.

00:23:01.540 That's not who he needs to break.

00:23:04.020 They can stay out. 1.00

00:23:05.920 It's the 90% that he was talking about.

00:23:09.800 The 90% of men and women who their whole lives are dedicated to working incredibly hard,

00:23:18.100 very long hours, some creative energy, some physical energy, you know, all of the gambit,

00:23:25.940 like the entire span of labor. And all of them are doing that. And they know

00:23:34.020 that 90% of those actors won't survive a strike that lasts any length of time.

00:23:42.780 and he believes that as soon as it gets to that breaking point of the majority of those people

00:23:50.160 a good chunk of those people losing their their homes they will cave to whatever the studio

00:23:56.320 is offering you want my image of perpetuity okay you want my like that's what they're hoping for 0.68

00:24:03.900 the reality though is if that's the case you've eradicated by that ridiculous offer

00:24:12.320 of taking their image one time and using it in perpetuity,

00:24:15.760 you've eradicated all of those working actors' jobs forever anyway.

00:24:22.760 You've already shut that.

00:24:25.140 They will lose their home anyway.

00:24:28.660 That offer was to tell you what's coming down the pipe.

00:24:38.140 And I'm terrified because I think what's coming down the pipe is

00:24:42.320 AI coupled with CGI so that a studio never has to pay these people again, never has to

00:24:52.260 create. And in actuality, think about it like this. A lot of actors start out as extras.

00:25:02.820 They learn the business as extras. So here's my question. What if the next superstar is an extra

00:25:09.880 and Warner Brothers has bought their CGI, their AI image in one day when they came in for 300 bucks

00:25:18.460 and that person blows up. That person becomes the next, I don't know, Brad Pitt. That person

00:25:28.740 becomes the next Meryl Streep. Does the studio then own them as well in perpetuity? Is this the

00:25:38.220 way a studio can hedge their bets to own people as, and, and, and taking a guess at who might

00:25:48.100 actually blow up is, is that implied in that? Cause I promise you it is. Cause this might be

00:25:55.700 a throwback to 60 years ago when they went on strike in the first, like, you know, not in the

00:26:01.200 first place, but a major strike talking about how studios used to own people. So if you were

00:26:08.380 Cary Grant, if you were Myrna Loy, you were owned by a studio, just like being owned by a record

00:26:16.520 label. Now, the difference there is if MGM bought me, and please make your own comparisons to what

00:26:25.680 that sounds like, but if MGM bought me, I only ever get to make movies with MGM for the rest of

00:26:30.740 my career. Does owning their image, even as an extra, sound remotely like trying to get back

00:26:42.000 the heyday of Hollywood when they could own actors as a commodity, giving them no recourse

00:26:52.480 to work anywhere else completely disempowering and stripping away their work and creative autonomy

00:27:02.960 forever is that what they're trying to get back to i promise you they are oh i promise you they are

00:27:13.120 now when we're talking about this what comes to mind and again this is something that i'm

00:27:17.600 I'm, you know, please, in the comments, pour your comments, pour your questions, anything

00:27:22.980 you disagree with, pour it in there, because I'm desperate to understand this whole picture.

00:27:29.480 Because I want to know, we have to answer this question, what does a healthy structure

00:27:37.680 look like?

00:27:40.360 What does a healthy structure look like for this industry?

00:27:46.520 And by the way, by the way, I don't care if you're in a union as a teacher, as a nurse, if you're at a union in Starbucks.

00:27:57.160 it's the same potential idea in the sense that how much money is a corporation

00:28:06.840 is a company allowed to absorb how big are they allowed to get without equitably please note i

00:28:17.440 said the word equitably not equally equitably distributing wealth to those who have built

00:28:25.240 the corporation, keep it functioning, and keep it growing. How do we know that? How do we decide

00:28:33.440 that? When we talk about what a guy like Tom Cruise gets for a movie, that's nothing compared

00:28:39.000 to what the owners get. It makes Tom Cruise look poor. What? No different, no different

00:28:47.740 than the owners of major league teams and the players no different so this isn't just a movie

00:28:58.500 problem part of it is a it you know is is all being elevated to just a movie problem because

00:29:07.120 that's because the owners want to frame it as such the owners want to frame it as poor poor

00:29:14.360 Hollywood actors. They get so much and now they just want more. Let me refer you to 90%

00:29:21.800 of actors are working paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. They are not millionaires.

00:29:30.440 They do not own major estate. They are like you and like me trying to work in an industry that

00:29:39.120 they find to be who they are, empowered by it, create, whatever, whatever the reason

00:29:44.700 they chose to do this job, the movie studios are counting on the public going along with

00:29:56.040 the ridiculous falsehood of a narrative.

00:30:00.900 all these movie stars with all this money and all they want is more money that's what they think

00:30:11.420 that's how ridiculously disconnected the public is from the actual working world of hollywood and

00:30:20.240 and movies and movie production and television production and i say that as somebody has always

00:30:25.500 been very removed from it we're very removed from it because we see it as this such an

00:30:30.400 incredibly cool amazing thing and let's be honest everybody wants a little bit everybody a little

00:30:36.320 bit wants to be a movie star come on now so there's a level of jealousy there and there's a level of

00:30:42.480 expectation of what their lives might might must be like and that expectation is very similar to

00:30:50.700 rock stars but we started seeing that being dispelled right when you see actual biopics and

00:30:57.280 actual histories of how much money artists who were selling millions of

00:31:03.080 albums never made of Prince writing the word slave across,

00:31:08.500 across his four forehead,

00:31:10.360 changing his name so that the studio didn't own that.

00:31:16.840 Yet we say, well, they're rock stars, but again,

00:31:20.620 the majority of singers and songwriters are working paycheck to paycheck to

00:31:27.080 paycheck and the people that are amassing great sums of wealth are those who own them

00:31:35.500 and I use the term own purposefully because for some reason in these industries in these creative

00:31:45.260 industries this idea this concept of owning has always been there and is now making in my opinion

00:31:55.700 a very big, a very big comeback from the owners. And I think because everything's shifting,

00:32:03.500 the owners are still trying to figure out what do I need to do to make more? What do I need to do?

00:32:10.680 And this is key to own more of them. Because if I own them, I control them. If I control them,

00:32:22.200 All the streets come back to Paris

00:32:26.040 Everything comes back to the center

00:32:29.620 Which are those people and those billionaires

00:32:33.540 Who are controlling access, production and wealth

00:32:38.680 I see it as a big picture

00:32:42.500 And I'm going to, as of next week

00:32:46.900 I'm going to try to go down as many avenues as I can

00:32:50.720 ask as many questions as I can. For example, how should it be structured? What should be

00:32:57.080 transparent? What isn't transparent now? What should the public know? What should the actors

00:33:05.260 and actresses, how should all of this stuff be seen? And how transparent should these business

00:33:11.780 practices be in order to create a system? Forget equitable for a second. That's my goal.

00:33:21.200 how about we just create a system heaven help us that respects current labor law as it applies to

00:33:30.080 the rest of us how about that because they don't have any job security we understand that none

00:33:37.280 just because your union doesn't give you any job security they're in a profession with zero

00:33:41.680 So how are we not creating healthy, respectful, legal conditions of employment

00:33:53.000 that give equitable amounts of power to the workforce than to the owners?

00:33:59.960 Because that's the whole point of unions, right?

00:34:02.360 You can like them, you can hate them.

00:34:04.020 Well, if you hate them, you just don't understand them.

00:34:05.680 Because let's be honest, without unions, nobody in this country or the United States

00:34:10.860 would ever have a decent wage, days off, holiday pay, sick pay ever. And I don't care if you're

00:34:17.980 not in a union. If you're not in a union, you should go thank a union employee for going on

00:34:24.620 strike 10 years ago, because that's why you got what you got. I promise you. I promise you.

00:34:32.940 That's how it works. So if you think you're getting paid what you're paid because you think

00:34:39.660 your employer respects you and they just, please, oh, honey, then I have some land to

00:34:44.660 sell you, right?

00:34:46.040 No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 1.00

00:34:48.320 Unions fight to establish labor law.

00:34:52.080 Labor law and expectation then pervades all other employment sectors in that country and

00:34:59.560 in that region.

00:35:01.520 Without the union, you have no expansion of workers' rights. 0.70

00:35:05.880 Without expansion of workers' rights, everybody gets screwed.

00:35:09.660 So a lot of people love to sit back, go, unions. No, no, you should be thanking a union. Because if a union didn't do what they did, and sometimes in completely different fields, you would not be getting paid what you're getting paid. You would have no sick time. You would have no days off. You would have no workers' rights whatsoever.

00:35:27.820 ever labor law exists because of unions not because somebody got nice at some point

00:35:35.660 and don't think that same struggle isn't happening within the acting community do not think it isn't

00:35:42.380 a hard difficult painstaking job that people engage in and provide such an amazing thing for

00:35:51.900 the rest of the world that is our culture and that's what remains our music our movies our theater

00:36:01.660 you want to ignore it you want to go about your day i promise the strike's coming to a town near

00:36:06.300 you ups right on the brink what else do you think is going to happen what else how many other rights

00:36:15.900 are going to be stripped away in the face of economic crisis, in the face of billionaires

00:36:22.940 wanting to make more billions. Never have we seen such an increase of wealth in the hands of so few.

00:36:31.660 Why? We're living in a broken capitalist system, and the only group that is going to right that

00:36:38.260 system are going to be unions. They're the ones that have to renegotiate labor law. They're the

00:36:45.880 ones that in this age of the internet and AI and CGI and all of the different things

00:36:51.160 we now face, they are the ones that have to sit at that table and create and fight for

00:36:57.400 new laws to protect workers against new social, economic, and technological conditions that

00:37:07.220 would otherwise erode away their rights so those few at the top get more.

00:37:15.880 understand it's a bigger fight it is a bigger fight but I am going to do my best to understand

00:37:25.140 each piece as we go when it pertains to this particular strike I am going to do my best

00:37:32.440 to raise awareness to individuals being affected and to personalize it so we can all stop thinking

00:37:40.080 It's just Julia Roberts up there, you know, lying beside the pool. And by the way, all of those huge actors have all walked off, have all walked off, have all picked up picket signs. Right? Because those people understand how they got to where they are. Those people understand what the future looks like. And those people understand what the fight has to be.

00:38:05.980 so don't discount them either just because they've made a lot of money that doesn't mean

00:38:12.220 they're not here for a fight it doesn't mean the fight doesn't need to happen so any questions you

00:38:17.540 have any any disagreements you have with me throw them in the comments if you're ever going to

00:38:23.060 comment on a video now is the time throw them in the comments i will do tiktok after tiktok after

00:38:29.500 podcast after podcast, diving into each specific thing so that we can gain an understanding of

00:38:37.760 this. I am not going to let the media that exists or those 10 guys control the narrative

00:38:45.540 well in so much as I can help it. So write down your comment, write down your question,

00:38:52.040 write down what frustrates you and I'll take it to LA next week and we'll see what kind of

00:38:58.260 trouble we can cause. And until then, I'll see you next week. Same bat time, same bat station.

00:39:06.200 Dismissed. 1.00

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - July 18, 2023

The One Where The Terminator Goes On Strike

Episode Stats

Transcript