The unions have divided the strike from the beginning. Rather than demand a contract for all writers, actors, and other media workers, they will negotiate separate contracts, dividing the strike. Nevertheless, the coincidence of the two strikes is not an accident. The strikers on both sides are forced into conflict with capitalism and in the union executive’s own words, the “existential threat to their livelihoods” the private profit system creates. New technology has always thrown multitudes of workers on to the street, and this generation faces the same threat. New technology, rather than increasing production, only lengthens and intensifies the working day, since fewer capitalists can afford the new machines. Socialists, the workers’ most reliable friends in politics, must answer this argument by arguing for nationalization of the industry. Anything else only drives the workers further into servitude under the oligarchy.

Nationalization would change the relationship of the workers to technology. With full employment, guaranteed livable wages, and other social safety net policies, new technology would not pose any threat to anybody’s livelihood. CGI technology could be implemented alongside massive government funding for local theaters. The people could reopen the many theaters that shut down due to competition from none other than the movie and television industry itself. More actors than ever before could find work after graduating from college, raising the education level in general of the most famous actors. Theater would not eliminate television and movies but add to the experience. Real actors would not eliminate CGI but use real actors to compliment the CGI on the screen.

From changes to color, to digital, to streaming, the industry has always adapted to new technologies. If they did not, filmmaking would find an offshore location from where they could export CGI products at a lower cost and in greater quantity back into the US. Actors and writers should not believe the false promises of the trade union bureaucracy and corporation, who are themselves acting out the same rehashed NLRB script they always use, the one written by Congress and named Taft-Hartley. If the trade union bureaucrats really cared about the workers, they would quietly whisper to them to organize workers’ committees outside the control of the unions. Such committees could carry on a strike even after the bureaucrats ink a deal. Such committees could stand up to the state and demand political changes, which then could lead to more contractual changes.

The idea of workers’ committees did not occur to some genius but arose naturally from the experience and the existential needs of the workers themselves. Socialists studied these committees and realized that they offer the way forward for the revolution. Not all socialists are the same, however, and some have figured out how to bureaucratize these committees like pros. That means that in order for the committees to carry out their revolutionary function, they require more than the real support of the workers. They require a class policy, limiting the net worth of their executives and forcing through the full participation of the workers in decision-making and coordination. Workers should see their struggle as linked to the war in Ukraine, in that tens of thousands will die and millions turn homeless all to serve the special needs of the oligarchy. The workers should understand that the architects of the war are the same architects as the NLRB. They should reject all their plans and put forward their own. For a general strike! For workers’ committees controlled by the workers themselves! And for the livelihood of the many over the privileges of the few!