this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Choosing to lose $300M to $500M to break unions (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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https://ohai.social/@tangledwing/111026205822188254

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Clear fans of P.T. Barnum

The Art of Money Getting: Use The Best Tools

Men in engaging employees should be careful to get the best. Understand, you cannot have too good tools to work with, and there is no tool you should be so particular about as living tools. If you get a good one, it is better to keep him, than keep changing. He learns something every day; and you are benefited by the experience he acquires. He is worth more to you this year than last, and he is the last man to part with, provided his habits are good, and he continues faithful. If, as he gets more valuable, he demands an exorbitant increase of salary; on the supposition that you can't do without him, let him go. Whenever I have such an employee, I always discharge him; first, to convince him that his place may be supplied, and second, because he is good for nothing if he thinks he is invaluable and cannot be spared.

Scum is timeless

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Damn... that started off good then took a really sharp turn into asshole town.

[–] CRT 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Title of your sex tape

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 1 points 1 year ago

Assuming that the sex tape is adapted from a light novel.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah basically don't let workers ever know their worth or they'll cut into your profits

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The language was dehumanizing from the start wym?

[–] Cabrio 8 points 1 year ago

he is good for nothing if he thinks he is invaluable and cannot be spared.

If self awareness was a disease he'd be the healthiest man alive.

[–] devil_d0c 69 points 1 year ago (6 children)

No this is about money.

In 15 years there won't be any live action "big budget" movies anymore, they will be generated using ai models and licensing the likeness of actors.

The fact that they are eating 500M right now means that they are confident in their models, hence my 15 year prediction.

[–] iforgotmyinstance 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We've been here before and it's a bluff. The capabilities of AI and future AI are specious at best and untested at worst.

The root of this issue is the fact that we have publicly traded companies at all. WB can weather actions from other persons all it wants, but it can't capitulate to workers because of their obligation to the shareholders. All this would be over in a heartbeat if shareholders got together and demanded WB seek a resolution.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That i find a weird way of the Americans. The company is supposed to deny workers proper compensation and liveable working conditions, so the shareholders make more money shortly, or not even that because of the loss incurred by strikes?

Now they are basically advertising to everyone: "please work somewhere else. dont work here. we are a shit employer and you will get fucked"

With that they'll jeopardize their company over the next decade. We all saw with Twitter how fast a company can be run into the ground, when the workers are getting fucked over too much.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

American corporate executive culture is really toxic, but even worse is the fact that in the US, publicly-traded companies (and the boards thereof) have a legal fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of their shareholders and no one else. Not the workers, not the greater good, not even the company itself.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nah, the history of labor relations is the owner's willingness to implode things. Like when the deli at walmart formed a union and walmarts response was to stop having delis. They lost a lot of money, but they would rather lose than share.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They likely did the math and the potential loss of money if unionization took hold and shutting it down is the better financial option in the long run.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

'They did the math' implies a level of competence and foresight that I think it's foolish to ascribe to the rich. They are humans, just like anyone. They are not perfect and they make mistakes. They certainly don't all exhaustively analyze every decision to maximize profits. Many of them are just arrogant and go with how they feel. Even those that might do a bit of research are hampered by the yes-men they surround themselves with.

Lots and lots of companies make decisions solely because some execs ego was involved.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

No one can do that math; that's nonsense. They knew they might have to share and did what any money-addicted psychopath does and hurt everyone to win.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think they wanted to stop the spread of unions to other parts of Walmart, which could cost them some unknown amount of money.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

It's both

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I do not buy the "everything will be AI" bit, but this is 100% about the money (which, to be clear, is also power). Employees are forced to think short term just to survive, but (smart) companies think much, much longer. They look at "+$xx million/year" and they see that times an indeterminate amount of years into the future. On those time scales, losing $500m once to stop it is a bargain to them.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 4 points 1 year ago

The thing is, they lost a tonne of money during the COVID lockdowns, then after one decent recovery year in 2022 they lost even more from the 2023 flops, and now they're losing money from the strike. After a while it starts to add up.

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think I’d predict A.I. will replace the business side of the film industry long before it can handle writing a decent script, much less generate a whole coherent movie. But if the models are that amazing in 15 years, I can imagine a scenario where it lowers production costs to the point directors don’t need a studio anymore.

Like imagine A.I. models can’t make a whole film but a director and writer can use A.I. tools to provide prompts and the script text to generate the scenes and easily add CGI effects. If “Adobe Film Director” or whatever can handle that and only costs $1000/year, who needs producers and distribution and all that?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The problem with AI is, that it tends to go for the "average" or "middle ground" solution. Also if we start seeing more and more AI movies, the models would learn off other AI generated content and that will degenerate them. It is AI inbreeding.

These things are kind of fundamental to the way machine learning works, because at heart it is statistics.

So either they will generate new movies, that are just reskins of other movies with ever more boring plots. Or they will still need actual writers and actors. Now i know hollywood is doing a lot of the first already. But without actual creativity, bringing along new ideas and starting new franchises, eventually it will get boring even for the most diehard marvel fan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

ai models and licensing the likeness of actors

One of the things the studios are wanting to do is not even need to licence the actors (especially background actors) to use them for their AI.

[–] xantoxis 47 points 1 year ago

Say it louder for those in the back:

They care about power. Not money.

They have more money than they know what to do with, but without total power, they'll lose everything.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't read into it enough to know this for a fact, but I believe that loss isn't even real. Probably their estimation of what they'll miss out on this year by pushing Dune 2 to 2024. They'll make it back.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That doesn't make sense. So if not for the strike, they could make the money from Dune 2 this year and next year make money from a movie they made this year. But with the strike, they have to choose between making money this year or next year, instead of making money both years.

They're losing a lot of money from this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not saying they aren't losing anything, but the true number will be smaller than what they are saying long term. They'll still have plenty of movies in post production to release next year, and probably plenty ready to go once a deal is made with SAG. They'll prioritize a deal with the actors once there's risk a film they've invested in will need to be cancelled entirely unless a deal it's done and can wait on the writers until their isn't a script to be found, but they'll still probably recoup the bulk of the lost earnings directly. TV production is probably feeling a true loss more directly and are hurt more immediately by the writer's strike.

Warner Bros are expecting 10.5-11 billion in revenue this year even with the strike so they are fine with waiting.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Delaying Dune 2 means one less weekend for another movie next year. Sure they could release multiple movies in the same weekend, hope for a Barbieheimer type thing to happen again, but it seems more likely that's something like that will decrease revenue.

Not having actors or writers creates a bottleneck. Yeah they can do post production on the stuff they've shot already. But nothing new is coming down the pipeline. Are you saying they'll do post at the same time they're shooting after the strike ends?

Warner Bros are expecting 10.5-11 billion in revenue

If money is nothing to them then why don't they simply pay the writers and actors more? The point is the money they're losing is more than the money they'd have to pay out.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 15 points 1 year ago

This is 2023 earnings. Nearly all of the movies released in 2023 would have already been scripted and shot by the time the strike started. The real hit will be in 2024 and beyond.

[–] obinice 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

We're they only asking for 47 million as a ONE TIME fee? If so, this seems silly, yes. Assuming it's entirely about money and the workers don't get any other extra rights.

However, if it's an ongoing thing, or if the workers end up with better rights and contracts in perpetuity, this is worth a LOT more than a few million. They'll spend anything they have to on this, and save money in the long run.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

So the workers will start to leave and only come back if the individually agreed salary is higher. They will still lose that money or permanently lose the workers. But on top of that they'll lose all the money from the strike.

It is in businesses own best interest to pay wages high enough, that their workers are happy to stay and do their best. You know the Henry Ford paying his workers enough to buy his cars thing.