Dan Glickman: State needs to honor deal that ended writers’ strike

In all likelihood, the state Senate Judiciary Committee will vote along partisan lines today to essentially reopen the recent, divisive (and thankfully) concluded strike by the Writers' Guild of America.

Among many topics, the issue of how studios make certain "fair market value" calculations was debated at the negotiating table and a compromise was reached through the give and take of the collective bargaining process.

After shaking hands on an agreement that gave neither side everything it wanted, but that allows our economy and our industry to move forward, the Writers Guild leadership apparently turned immediately to Sacramento seeking permission to renege on its side of the bargain.

With today's likely vote on Senate Bill 1765, out comes a glass box, inside lies a red button, and the only thing missing is Howie Mandel. The all-important question has been asked: "deal or no deal?"

This jarring, off-key note comes at a pivotal, fragile moment in the entertainment community's recovery. Still-fresh wounds from the recent strike are only now starting to heal as folks get back to work.

The Screen Actors Guild and studio negotiators are tentatively pulling up chairs and opening what we all hope will be constructive and expeditious dialogue. The men and women on both sides of the table will grapple with extraordinarily complex issues. But now a question looms: Is Sacramento waiting in the wings to "correct" their work and potentially upset the balance of any hard-won progress they forge together?

As someone who spent 18 years in Congress as a staunch supporter and defender of the sanctity, integrity and value of the collective bargaining process, it is difficult for me to imagine a more debilitating setback than allowing this ill-advised legislative "do-over" to proceed.

What remains of the collective bargaining process if lawmakers can turn these intricate, piece-by-piece negotiations into an a la carte menu?

Yes, the process can be tough, bruising and not pretty to watch. We all have the scars to show for it. But at the end of the day we emerge with progress here, concessions there and – most important – a way forward together. To get there, we trust one another to stand by our word. Collective bargaining is meaningless without this core collective commitment.

These negotiations involve at times deeply divisive issues that hardly need revisiting. But at the end of the day, both studios and the folks they employ want to make the most money possible over the increasingly long life of the content they create together.

Essentially, we want to grow the biggest possible pie to carve up among the various stakeholders. Sometimes this entails immediately selling off content to the highest bidder. Often it involves maintaining content rights and monetizing them over time – not only through theatrical or television distribution, but the growing array of downstream markets, as well from DVDs to digital downloads.

The legislation advanced today would criminalize this business decision and mandate that every time content is created – from a TV show to a feature film – it must be immediately put on the auction block and sold to the highest bidder, whether a movie theater chain, a hotel or airline, an online distributor or private entity.

Putting aside the genuinely terrifying implications to free speech (just imagine an extreme political entity purchasing and shelving a film from an opposing point of view), this is a radical notion that fundamentally changes the structure of the entertainment industry – all by summary government fiat.

All sides agree that we still have much to learn about how future business models will work in this new media environment. Having the government carve one strategy in stone – banning other approaches – devalues everyone's work and further weakens the case for investment in original scripted programming amid the rising tide of reality and user-generated fare.

As California nurses its $2.5 billion hangover from the recent writers' strike and lawmakers labor to revive our economy, there is plenty of important work to do. Reopening fresh wounds and undercutting collective bargaining should not top the list. It is understandable that, in some corners, temperatures continue to run high today. But let's hope that cooler heads prevail in Sacramento.

One word stopped the fighting and restarted the creativity in Hollywood. We came to this word together only after extraordinary effort and across a great divide. For California's economy and creative community, it's a word that Sacramento should respect. It's time to close the glass box and affirm, once more, "deal."