Comcast is maneuvering to “destroy” Hollywood unions, Writers’ Guild of...
Comcast is maneuvering to “destroy” Hollywood unions, Writers’ Guild of America West board members Chip Johannessen and Patric Verrone said on the guild’s website. At issue is Comcast’s opposition to efforts by its TV shows’ writers to unionize. “Despite what…
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Comcast promised when it was under the microscope of federal merger hearings, it is now clear that they're not interested in maintaining Hollywood’s union environment,” the board members said. The writers said Comcast’s official corporate policy “is more frankly expressed in their anti-union training manual,” which they quoted as saying, “Comcast does not feel union representation is in the best interest of its employees, customers, or shareholders.” Johannessen and Verrone said unions are an integral part of the entertainment business. “Comcast thinks it can pull a sleight of hand, labeling some of its writers ‘Comcast,’ and [therefore] non-union, when across the hall there is NBC. That may be the way they built the cable company with the worst customer satisfaction ratings in America, but we can’t let it be the way they behave here. None of us can."