Based Camp - The Union's Union is Protesting Unions (How Hollywood Broke)

00:00:00.000 hello simone i'm excited to be here with you today today we are going to be talking about

00:00:03.440 the ridiculousness of what's going on in hollywood right now which will give us an

00:00:07.720 a chance to talk about many related issues specifically wag the writers guild of america

00:00:15.460 created a union under itself that is now in a fight with the writers guild of america

00:00:28.100 that the writers guild of america is not stepping down from and the fight is over all of the things

00:00:35.480 that the writers guild of america is at the moment fighting the studios for so for example the biggest

00:00:42.960 issue that the writers guild of america will not compromise to with its own union of members

00:00:49.940 is they want it to not be able to use ai to replace him that's the core thing it's arguing with the

00:00:57.060 studios about and so we're going because i first heard about this and i was like i have to

00:01:03.020 understand this in so much more detail is this normal to have a union inside of a union is it

00:01:09.400 normal for them to be fighting a union over the same things that union is fighting externally over

00:01:14.460 what are they fighting over what aren't the union bosses compromising on why does the union inside

00:01:21.120 the union say they're being trailed by surveillance agents hired by the union what yes unions with

00:01:29.480 the spies it is it is unions all the way down oh my god nothing but unions

00:01:35.320 next i need to have a union of the union of the union um that that's the secret union they just

00:01:54.280 don't tell you about that one so i want to talk about this fight one because it's comical but two

00:02:00.020 it provides us with two interesting things that we can look into and dig deeper on one is the

00:02:06.760 problem with unions more broadly i personally am not an anti-union person i am anti-public sector

00:02:13.020 union i think that's insane but i think that unions should be legal however i think that they are very

00:02:19.740 rarely good for anyone and unfortunately people including the employees let's be clear yeah they're

00:02:25.360 usually bad for employees right and we'll get into and this will be a clear instance of just how

00:02:30.060 little unions actually care about employees and and if you're wondering why i'm so against things like

00:02:35.780 public sector unions the famous line from the head of like the teachers union in new york was like

00:02:40.080 we'll start caring about the best interest of students when students start paying union dues

00:02:43.680 which is true and simone found this really great study that was looking at how long school closures

00:02:50.560 around covid happened and the number one thing that was correlatory wasn't the amount of outbreak in a

00:02:57.800 region but the strengths of the teachers union and about safety never it's about getting teachers time

00:03:04.000 off and extra pay but i want to go into how unions break down how they make things worse for workers

00:03:11.160 so that's one thing that we're going to talk about and then we're going to go into on on top of that

00:03:16.920 we're going to go into how ai is changing the workplace environment and how and why basically

00:03:23.960 nobody's making serious compromises on it even the union that is fighting against ai is unwilling to

00:03:29.740 allow its workers to say we won't use ai it's like whoa come on be reasonable here people oh i thought

00:03:37.160 you were going to say that they were going complete luddite in a way that was going to render them

00:03:40.520 obsolete in the end but what you're saying is actually they're fighting back and they're saying no i

00:03:44.320 actually kind of want to use ai is that right being like oh well i mean reasonably you can't do any and

00:03:49.780 then i want to talk about how that's interesting because i've actually a bunch of the the woke

00:03:54.040 youtubers i write have been talking about how new iterations of shows feel like they've been written

00:03:59.340 by ai and i wonder just how much ai writing has actually taken over screenwriting like that the

00:04:04.720 latest season of wednesday apparently to so many people they're like wait a second this was definitely

00:04:09.620 written by ai which i'm curious to see you know if that ends up coming out to be true maybe i mean

00:04:15.180 people have said that about the new star trek as well and the thing is is that if you are like a

00:04:19.820 standard woke progressive you're gonna sound like an ai right like that's the problem right that's the

00:04:26.720 your response to this is does it matter what's the difference does it matter do you notice the

00:04:30.780 difference they're already on autopilot i mean and you see this as they get older and they get more

00:04:35.560 entrenched in this i mean obviously the famous case here is stephen colbert where you know i was

00:04:39.920 watching him on like strangers was candy recently and he was hilarious and then you go to the colbert

00:04:43.820 report or his time on the daily show and he's hilarious and and then just as time has gone on

00:04:48.340 he's gotten less and less funny and now he's just basically chat gpt try to be a snarky progressive

00:04:55.440 talking about the news right how did he get that bad how did he become so deeply unfunny

00:05:01.500 and well i mean it is his writers it's not like he does all his own stuff he did do his own stuff

00:05:08.160 remember when there was the the writer's strike stephen colbert was one of the shows that kept

00:05:12.180 going without writers so we know what stephen was he was quite funny his quality didn't really drop

00:05:18.340 at all so then he's bad writers now no the the point i'm making is i think that he does a lot more

00:05:23.280 of his own writing than other people even still okay given that i didn't notice a change in his show

00:05:28.240 when he lost all the writers due to the writer's strike this was eight by the way talk about ancient

00:05:32.800 history and i liked his show enough then that i was able to tell there wasn't a big drop in quality

00:05:38.360 during the writer's strike the other funny thing is the ridiculousness that like wag has asked for

00:05:44.120 just if you want to get an idea of like how insane wag's requests have been this is the writers

00:05:48.980 actors guild that has the union picketing it they tried to make it so that you would have a like when

00:05:56.380 we're talking about urban culture brained writers right try to make it so that you had a have a 0.92

00:06:02.720 minimum number of writers per show i think it's like four people at least four to six people and

00:06:10.020 it's like that's how you get slop like too many cooks too many cooks too many cooks

00:06:16.660 too many cooks too many cooks too many cooks too many cooks too many cooks too many cooks too many

00:06:46.440 this is the worst case of intranitis I've ever seen you can even hear the

00:07:00.060 theme music and the thing is we have no idea how contagious the strain is now

00:07:09.080 so bad it's so bad I like let's just let's just add more people there's the famous research that

00:07:37.280 showed that after a certain group size the IQ of of the collective thought process goes down

00:07:43.640 significantly like let's just make this worse just more more running this by committee because

00:07:50.600 that produces good outcomes so let's go into Charles Shakespeare wrote things with a group

00:07:57.180 of course as did Dickens yes famously yes they're like you need a group for quality that's what

00:08:03.420 they said yes no you can't get good writing with just like without the consensus of the masses

00:08:08.300 yes god forbid no no no no no no no the whole wonder why Hollywood's not making anything that

00:08:14.760 anyone wants to watch anymore it's these guys and you basically cannot make anything high

00:08:18.220 production in Hollywood without their approval oh and when well the the amazing thing too that

00:08:23.240 you and I have witnessed when documentary film or news film crews come over is the the stark

00:08:27.940 difference we see when we work with unionized studios versus non-unionized studios if it's a

00:08:34.140 unionized production crew it it's going to suck it is the most inefficient day they spend like

00:08:39.960 eight hours to film five minutes they bring all this equipment they spend all this time making a huge

00:08:45.700 mess in our house and like buying lunch ordering lunch getting lunch taking their lunch break setting

00:08:51.860 up putting down having a meeting and we're like sitting there and we're like can we can we like live

00:08:56.680 our lives please can you can we maybe just do this having unionized crews ever I mean I hope they all

00:09:02.140 go out of business anyway they're gonna have to they're gonna they this is unsustainable I don't

00:09:07.360 understand this and I don't know I'm thinking about outlining an episode at one point in which I

00:09:11.880 put out the argument that that feudalism actually never went away that actually for this really long

00:09:17.580 period of time a bunch of people have basically just had patrons like wealthy people funding

00:09:23.080 non-productive work and they just always there have been sort of these wealthy people owning

00:09:29.820 different fiefdoms and then the rest of us are just peasants like leeching off of their money and

00:09:35.180 then there's some people who have you know local merchant there's this merchant class where people

00:09:40.340 just make money off of businesses that do real work but anyone who is a mid-level manager or who works

00:09:46.160 for a large corporation whose work cannot be directly connected to profit is basically living

00:09:52.960 in someone else's fiefdom off of their largesse as a patron maybe okay that that could work

00:10:01.400 potentially as an episode we'll see but I mean that's I think that's definitely what's happening

00:10:04.800 in Hollywood because that what they what they're doing is not connected to a return on investment

00:10:09.420 the money is not being put into them and making more money it is just it stops there it ends there's

00:10:16.420 there's no more so the core issue that stalled negotiations of the union unions contract and by

00:10:23.360 the way this is their very first negotiation so the union under the union just formed apparently this

00:10:29.660 is a normal thing to happen within unions except it bypassed a normal vote that you would have when it

00:10:35.320 formed I guess it's a sign of good faith but their very first negotiation is where things are failing

00:10:40.100 and everything's falling apart okay so this new inner union the cancer within the cancer is new as of

00:10:47.060 when 2025 like last year oh it just formed okay I think 2025 it formed and this is their first contract

00:10:54.020 negotiation and these these subunions form why when the union isn't union enough what what is their

00:11:00.160 purpose we'll get into that so the contract negotiations broke down over accusations that the

00:11:08.200 writers actors guild had been negotiating in bad face including alleged surveillance retaliation against

00:11:16.120 organizers and only surface level talks without real progress and that's specifically what they mean

00:11:21.220 when they say like you're not really representing us I'm gonna protest this I'm gonna form my own

00:11:26.180 yes they also argued that they were breaking labor laws that the union was breaking labor laws and

00:11:31.620 doing unfair labor practices so there's they kind of check out actually there's I mean I could be I

00:11:37.980 could see a teacher deciding to form a union against teachers unions because teachers unions are so corrupt

00:11:43.320 so messed up and like here the teachers are like scraping together pennies to take their kids on a field trip

00:11:49.540 meanwhile the unions are like sitting high and pretty on their mountains of money

00:11:54.800 why don't the teachers force teachers to pay it's my understanding in a lot of areas like you're not

00:11:59.660 allowed to even be employed if you don't give money to the union okay maybe now I'm kind of now I'm in

00:12:03.920 favor of subunions let's let's have more unions or unions we need to unionize against the unions yes

00:12:10.060 no this is good okay whoa look I'm into this tell me more all unions must have subunions at least

00:12:17.380 you have to resist you have to resist the evil union and the only way you could do that you have

00:12:21.260 to fight fire with fire so they fought for higher pay to of course to address the living costs in

00:12:29.740 southern california they said then just move to a location outside of southern california

00:12:33.240 they want a situation okay you can go change it's emergency it might be a blowout and I don't want to

00:12:39.620 do you you do so much for this family I do not know how you put up with this

00:12:44.120 other people say they put up with s-h-i-t but I actually do a lot of it a baby 1.00

00:12:52.180 you got a lot more simone we're only halfway there this is number five five so we're not even halfway 0.97

00:13:00.740 there yeah not even I'm sorry you're gonna be so sad when it's the last baby shit I am well no 0.78

00:13:10.680 because I'm by then if we plan things right it's just a couple years until a grandkid so

00:13:16.760 it's all good Octavian is so fun he's gonna be a great dad he was telling me yesterday about how he

00:13:22.620 was gonna give his kids way more toys than he has and I'm like I don't know if that's gonna be

00:13:27.380 possible buddy we owe many toys you said that for real yeah for real he's like I'm gonna get my kids

00:13:34.260 so many toys he is going over with me on the video game where he found a map in like a war room

00:13:39.840 and he's like he's explaining to all the AIs how they're gonna conduct the war and he's like and we

00:13:45.400 need to attack the islands oh no yeah he was telling me about how America needs to take more territory and

00:13:53.620 I'm like yeah that they're working on it buddy and he's like yeah I need to make them do it and I'm

00:13:58.340 like how are you gonna make them do it and he's like well I'm gonna give them money okay okay

00:14:04.120 thank god all right yeah to continue here so they wanted governance and fairness procedures just

00:14:09.600 clause rules to prevent arbitrary firings plus formal processes for handling disputes and to

00:14:14.340 promote accountability and improvement of working conditions the strike escalated to the point where

00:14:20.400 the union discussed canceling its annual awards show which is a huge deal in the industry

00:14:25.780 yeah it is a very big awards okay it's the main union for writers in Hollywood canceling the awards

00:14:32.700 for what writers the yearly awards and they're like and we're gonna blame this all on you the subunion 0.65

00:14:37.780 right like and of course the subunion then became quite upset about this so let's let's discuss the

00:14:43.420 salary situation here the minimum annual salary for staffers is 43 000 which is about the American

00:14:51.960 median salaries so I don't know I mean these are non-profit workers that's high that's a minimum

00:14:58.040 salary it's it's in LA you know that that's rough well then don't base in LA doesn't doesn't work like

00:15:05.120 that but I hear you and so they proposed that they move from 40 43 000 being the minimum to 59 737 being

00:15:15.120 the minimum and then a 7.5 percent increase upon ratification and 5 percent increases in each of the next

00:15:22.840 two years which to me seems ridiculous I mean it comes back to that famous minimum wage debate which

00:15:30.940 really can be extrapolated to any position if you choose to make your salary higher you're putting yourself

00:15:37.620 first on the chopping block when money gets tight like sure okay like whenever employees asked us for

00:15:44.420 raises that were just kind of out of nowhere like not really merit-based or whatever it's just like

00:15:48.800 well I want to raise we're like okay like if this really matters to you we will give you a raise and

00:15:55.020 here's what's going to happen depending on how high your raise is when we look like we hit a hard time

00:16:00.520 and we have to figure out how we're going to make the company stay afloat we're going to have to

00:16:05.860 eliminate the most expensive things we can yeah I always tell somebody that when we get to a race 1.00

00:16:11.120 I'm like you know that this puts you first on the chopping block to be fired right like yeah and

00:16:14.820 that's always how it was like when when the pandemic hit and we had to furlough employees and then keep

00:16:19.900 some on we kept on the most number of employees we could and that meant that if you had a lower salary

00:16:27.740 you were in like you were paid throughout the entire pandemic and if you had a higher salary you got

00:16:34.620 furloughed because you know basically like it's can I save if I can save two people by eliminating

00:16:41.580 one person I'm going to eliminate the one person so yeah by making yourself and what happens instead

00:16:47.380 with minimum wage as well if I can't afford a person I'm going to just figure out how to automate

00:16:53.180 them so I'm just not going to have that job anymore and that's already a problem in Hollywood already

00:16:57.960 people are spending long long stints unemployed well I think that they don't see it the way employers see

00:17:03.920 it so when an employee comes to us as somebody who's run large businesses like one of our businesses

00:17:08.600 pulled in like 70 million a year at one point and they came to us and they'd say hey I want more

00:17:13.140 money or something like that the calculation in my head is you know differentially when I can trust you

00:17:18.820 with somebody I could get on the open market versus other employees are you bringing in value to the

00:17:23.420 company and if you are then I will raise your salary was the understanding that what you bring into the

00:17:29.380 company can change based on things that aren't your fault like market conditions like a pandemic

00:17:34.300 etc yeah and then that can lead me to say because your people never you know it's it's almost always

00:17:40.200 better to fire someone than lower their pay oh yeah no you just you don't lower someone's pay

00:17:44.840 that basically never happens um and and so that's like I'm thinking what is your utility to the firm

00:17:51.100 versus how much do you cost these people are not thinking that about their own salary they're thinking

00:17:56.560 how much does it cost for me to live in LA therefore that's what I need to be paid not

00:18:02.360 could they hire somebody who's not in LA differentially less expensively that would be

00:18:07.560 just as enthusiastic about the position what do I actually do what value do I provide right like

00:18:13.120 yeah well that's the key thing too I mean if you really want to make yourself the the first that comes

00:18:19.700 to mind when someone needs to fire people or even just make yourself someone that they want to fire

00:18:23.600 immediately say I need a raise because I need money because life is expensive for me because

00:18:29.860 I want it you're not thinking about the best interest of the other employees yeah no it's you have to come

00:18:34.900 with I've I've brought this value I I am I basically just show that you are instrumental in in the

00:18:41.540 company's profitability that you know they put in one dollar and out comes two and that's what happens

00:18:46.600 when they pay you and if you can directly demonstrate that as long as you have a return on investment

00:18:51.940 you're good like and that we're always that way 100 percent you know if you output more money than

00:18:58.340 we we put in done that doesn't really happen a lot anyways and in terms of like how bad is this

00:19:05.900 organization because like oh maybe they the pay discrimination is really big the woman running 1.00

00:19:11.220 it Ellen Stutzman earns approximately six hundred and eighty two thousand dollars with smokes two other 1.00

00:19:17.540 senior officials earning three hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars and another earning four

00:19:20.940 hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars what do they do they almost certainly are not worth that

00:19:25.980 much money but keep in mind that's only like a bit more than 10x what the average employee is earning

00:19:30.960 which isn't that bad for a large company like this keep in mind just this one subunion branch of

00:19:37.820 this union has 110 members in it right this this union is operating all of the writers it's like a

00:19:46.720 for for basically all hollywood writers right like the the person who's running it is the face of it

00:19:51.760 is probably going to be famous in some regard and command a decent salary right like to me that

00:19:58.140 actually doesn't seem that abusive in a lot of charities you'll see people pulling in millions of

00:20:02.420 dollars in salary so for something this high profile i can see that i don't really see that as

00:20:07.740 as that particularly bad no i see it as egregious it for me i've always justified in my mind that it

00:20:14.500 makes sense for charities because the ceo typically is the de facto fundraiser and it implies that they

00:20:21.420 bring in more than they're being paid true true but this is different they're just taking a cut of

00:20:29.260 everyone's salaries yeah i mean like with a union it's basically i'm just going to take a little bit

00:20:34.020 of everything you earn and that's that's way different so i have a big issue with any union leaders

00:20:39.960 salary that money belongs to the union members

00:20:45.020 so to continue here how did they get this bargaining and bad faith accusation because this is obviously

00:20:53.040 really bad if they're now going and negotiating with hollywood people and people are like your

00:20:58.220 own employees say you bargain in bad faith like how are you really there have been there must have

00:21:03.120 been at least one historical instance of a union leader colluding with the ceo of the company

00:21:09.120 maybe for kickbacks yeah but that's clearly not happening here the things that they keep asking

00:21:13.860 hollywood for are completely ridiculous and going to sink the industry like which we'll get into but

00:21:18.520 so this core accusation was just came from surface bargaining where management shows up to sessions 0.93

00:21:24.120 but doesn't meaningfully engage or intend to reach an agreement on key issues recently during the

00:21:28.560 strike management allegedly refused further bargaining unless wgcsu accepted their latest offer by

00:21:33.660 february 27th 2026 or they'd cancel the writers guild awards on march 8th now what is interesting

00:21:42.640 here is the subunion is basically like the the bigger union is just like guys you just need to agree

00:21:49.480 to this stuff and the subunion is like no we will not stop coming to the table until you cave on the

00:21:55.660 two key issues they care about which are higher salaries and no ai which is zero ai like actual full

00:22:02.780 luddite no yeah yeah well we'll go over their exact ai requirements ai cannot be implemented for any

00:22:10.400 purpose e.g surveillance hiring discipline or performance evaluation without prior negotiation

00:22:15.720 and agreement with the union this includes a prohibiting unilateral use of all ai tools prohibitions

00:22:23.280 on use no generative ai tools like gpt in the workplace to replace or devalue staff roles e.g if ai can do it

00:22:31.900 cheaper don't allow it assurance let's render ourselves less competitive please yeah ai will

00:22:37.820 not be well they don't need to compete is why they can argue things like this right like if they want

00:22:43.960 to create art for one of their little like union things right like that's that's going out to the

00:22:49.260 writers members but then again i actually think it's probably in their best interest to have blanket

00:22:54.240 bands on ai as a union simply because of what they are fighting for it's very hard to argue no ai at the

00:23:00.780 major studios if they can't commit to that themselves and i can only imagine the blowback

00:23:05.600 if they put something like ai art in something that goes out to writers guild members

00:23:09.400 okay because a lot of these people are like reflexively into ai training and consent if ai is

00:23:17.920 introduced after bargaining staff must receive paid training and have input which is funny oh and no

00:23:23.160 forced adoption so if they don't want to use ai they can't be forced to use the ai which a lot of

00:23:28.140 companies are doing i've heard which is interesting forcing adoption yeah of ai obviously yeah because

00:23:36.300 you can get 10 times out of an employee that uses ai and that's the most what a lot of investors who

00:23:42.900 are bullish on ai are saying is that the most valuable employee over the next short term is going

00:23:49.600 to be an employee who very enthusiastically uses ai and that the hardest thing to get right now isn't like

00:23:55.500 good ai per se or just a good employee it's an employee who enthusiastically uses ai because that

00:24:01.820 is worth 10 or even 100 individuals right if you get both a very smart person and a very smart person

00:24:09.160 who uses the best ai unicorn right that's what they want do you think i should apply for normal jobs

00:24:14.860 again because i use a lot of ai you you you i mean you are you you fit the description very well

00:24:21.420 i just don't see how you could anyone's gonna tolerate working with me no why why you would

00:24:28.380 i mean even if we're tight on cash and everything wouldn't you rather be eating like canned beans and

00:24:35.140 not that's true but i i don't understand i i feel like we made a good product here i just gotta figure

00:24:43.180 out how to get people using it yeah and that's gonna take a lot of persistence and i don't know you're

00:24:47.740 like oh it's been two weeks and it's not huge like yeah that's pretty normal actually don't worry

00:24:53.900 about it we just have to grind i mean smartly of course but yeah it's it's a it's an amazing it's an

00:25:01.880 amazing chatbot and yeah well we'll figure it out anyway so they're at this this longer heads and the

00:25:10.980 the subunion i don't know i how do you think this is going to conclude so to continue here what i

00:25:19.040 wanted to understand is given what this subunion wants of them in relation to ai what did the union

00:25:26.360 want in regards to ai from the studios right because i wanted to contrast what the subunion

00:25:32.260 is asking them versus what they initially wanted okay right because presumably the union you'd guess

00:25:37.560 that they're allowing some ai adoption but it can't be a lot right yep so they wanted ai cannot

00:25:44.480 write rewrite or generate literary material now this is these are points that they won in 2023

00:25:50.840 oh okay okay ai generated content cannot be considered source material preventing studios

00:25:57.800 from using it as a basis for human revisions at lower pay rates basically they didn't want ai to

00:26:02.960 generate the original story and then humans come in and you know like they did with the wednesday show

00:26:07.280 or the star trek show they're obviously doing this but you know they're just having humans who do

00:26:12.340 these write-ups be paid for the ai's work right if ai is used in any way writers retain full credit

00:26:19.160 separate rights e.g ownership elements in compensation as if no ai was involved ai cannot undermine

00:26:25.600 writers pay or credits you know what i would be using ai for aggressively if i was major studios

00:26:31.280 and i'm really surprised we haven't seen this because they're still making these types of

00:26:35.200 mistakes canon conflicts ai is perfect for searching for canon just to make sure you're not oh that makes

00:26:44.740 a lot of sense that yeah because you're seeing a lot of canon conflicts show up in shows these days

00:26:49.180 especially because no one is willing to make original ip anymore so they're just going in on

00:26:54.720 like yeah like if you're making the prequel and the sequels or the new star trek just dump the script

00:26:59.580 in ai and be like where is every single canon conflict right just ask it like five times and

00:27:04.800 that's the type of thing that historically you'd have to hire nerds for and even they might miss

00:27:09.120 something yeah whereas with this absolutely i mean i think a lot of this comes down to all the weird

00:27:15.720 rules about ai use so you just can't use it for even really simple checks like this i mean

00:27:21.880 they don't even want it to be used for what like evaluations and stuff so i don't know anyway so

00:27:29.900 they wanted restrictions on ai around writers can choose to use ai tools with studio consent but

00:27:36.280 studios cannot require it and no training ai models on writer's specific works without permission

00:27:42.680 studios well maybe that's why the ais that are writing all the movies now are so bad studios disclose

00:27:48.020 and materials provided to writers if such materials include ai generated elements

00:27:53.000 um and then remember how i said they had the minimum staff things so for pre-greenlit development

00:28:01.720 rooms a minimum staff of six writers including four production writers was what they wanted

00:28:06.780 post-greenlit rooms scaled by episode count e.g. one writer per episode up to six then one

00:28:14.080 additional writer for every two episodes beyond that up to 12

00:28:17.480 how what i i i mean i understand that this is just to try to guarantee work for a group of people

00:28:32.300 that's finding jobs drying up in the industry but don't they understand that this is going to make it

00:28:37.760 impossible for producers to raise money for more movies and shows i like who can fund this i i they

00:28:49.540 literally do not think about where the money comes from or what their value is within the industry the

00:28:54.720 industry is just an infinite money flow to them and the amount of money they deserve is the amount

00:29:00.160 of money they need to live their lifestyles yeah well can can you blame the management for showing up and

00:29:10.300 just not being willing to talk i mean what are you supposed to say i mean i wish management would i

00:29:19.860 wonder if this has you know as we discussed right like if you ask for this we will have to find a way to

00:29:26.880 just completely get rid of you like is this being explicitly said do you think management's trying

00:29:32.020 to just not say it is is all of this just not being disclosed and is that unfair toward the actual

00:29:38.060 employees like literally incapable of i'm like your utility is the increase in productivity you bring to

00:29:45.240 the company of seeing the world that way that is not the way they see reality and so here i want to talk

00:29:52.800 about why unions typically end up hurting employees because a lot of people have this myth that unions

00:30:01.160 won a bunch of beneficial things for employees historically speaking and what we actually see

00:30:08.080 historically speaking is it was periods of enormous wealth within the united states specifically because

00:30:15.500 of the end of world war ii and the de-industrialization of europe that that caused and everybody who we owe

00:30:21.580 debts to and all the in our favorite trade negotiations we formed that was basically

00:30:25.660 american colonialization that was helping them if they want to go back to that we can go back to that 0.65

00:30:30.800 but we need to start getting aggressive need to get a little mager maga right but that was not

00:30:35.580 really the unions that won all of those benefits for workers and why unions generally suck at winning

00:30:42.840 benefits for workers is you've got to think of the actual incentive structure of a union right

00:30:48.260 so with the union the workers get out there and they elect the people who are quote unquote the

00:30:58.620 figureheads of the union right the like the the people who are running the union or putting in

00:31:03.920 charge who's running a union right maybe in an instance like this so how do you lose your position

00:31:08.600 how do you gain your position right it's really about signaling to the workers that you are superficially

00:31:15.400 doing whatever it is that they want you to do and not being willing to back down if you're not at

00:31:21.360 least superficially you don't need to actually do what they want you to but you need to superficially

00:31:25.100 do what they want you to right because potentially you can just blame well the you know the the evil

00:31:29.920 owners right and i think this subunion breakdown that we're seeing right now is a perfect example of

00:31:40.240 this this happening in real time so a new subunion is for one branch of the larger union and so the

00:31:48.300 people who are taking over leadership of this new sub faction anyway to continue so you've been elected

00:31:54.900 head of this new subunion right yeah you're going to your first contract negotiation you have to win

00:32:01.540 something like pay right like people are like that's why we formed this subunion we wanted higher pay

00:32:06.860 yeah we wanted ai protection right you go and it turns out that the stuff that your people wanted

00:32:13.640 were unreasonable i mean this is a union likely they would have already been given it so now you

00:32:18.840 don't actually need to win them this stuff you just need to have a big fit over not winning them this

00:32:24.420 stuff that's how you maintain your position right you and that's what they're doing right now like i think

00:32:30.040 they pretty quickly realized that they weren't going to win the things that they said they were going to win

00:32:34.960 and so then it just became okay well then let's throw a fit over this let's be be spoilers over

00:32:41.420 this let's have meeting after meeting after meeting over this we're doing our job we won't be replaced

00:32:46.160 we get whatever benefits come from this job whatever additional money or anything like that

00:32:50.120 and and what that means is it is a lot of people when they think of a union if they think it's an ability

00:32:56.700 for workers to collectively resist or push back against management when that's not functionally

00:33:05.820 what's happening what's happening is you're creating a sub layer of management which must performatively

00:33:11.400 combat the productive layer of management and and this you can see that the sub layer of management is

00:33:19.860 always going to be antagonistic to the productive layer insofar so like right here what is a union's job

00:33:25.260 to to win more of rights for the writers to win more pay to win more obviously this fight that the

00:33:31.700 subunion is having is going to hurt the goals of the larger union like writers should be furious about

00:33:38.640 this because this subunion has basically lost tens of thousands of writers they're negotiating power

00:33:44.900 for the marginal benefit of like a hundred people okay but that's not that's because they're leftists

00:33:54.660 they're not going to see this you know they're they're not going to grok that that's functionally

00:33:58.240 what's happening but the point i'm making here is they don't care and they don't care that they're

00:34:04.480 throwing the union members of the the larger union that are paying their salaries under the bus

00:34:10.480 because they don't care about the goals of that union they care about the politics that got them

00:34:15.920 elected into a subunion position even if those politics puts everyone who they serve in a weaker

00:34:23.920 position so a great example of this comes from my dad and one of his friends he told me the story

00:34:30.360 when i was younger was a pilot at an airline called pan am pan am like the og airline that's

00:34:37.140 crazy pan am if you if you've heard of it but don't know what happened to it went broke because of its

00:34:42.280 unions and he remembers a conversation he had with this pilot and he was very proud of what the unions

00:34:47.620 were doing in the strike and my dad was like i have run the numbers it's going to go bankrupt if

00:34:54.060 you guys keep doing this like why aren't you pushing back and the guy's like no like look at

00:34:58.080 these great pay that they've won us look at this great and functionally in the same way that employees

00:35:03.500 can in good times earn more marginal pay for themselves but they're also first on the chopping

00:35:08.540 block entire industries can do that to themselves where and this is what we're seeing in hollywood

00:35:14.940 right more and more people more and more projects are happening outside the union ecosystem

00:35:19.300 because the union ecosystem is making themselves uncompetitive yeah and you eventually get to that

00:35:27.720 point we like we've seen this with writers like obviously oh i want more writers in the room for

00:35:32.880 every story right obviously to the writers they're going to want that they're not thinking about it never

00:35:38.340 enters their mind how is this going to affect how much a user the the consumer of the products that

00:35:46.560 we're writing is going to want to consume what we're producing yeah it's literally never crosses their mind

00:35:54.220 because it's not relevant to them right so if they did think through that they'd be like oh

00:36:00.040 obviously having six writers to 12 writers in any writing room is going to decrease the in product

00:36:06.780 quality yeah but it never occurs anyway any final thoughts simone about unions recurrent unions etc etc

00:36:17.600 i want to see a movement of subunions the church of the subunion that

00:36:27.120 just destroys unions but that that roots out the corruption in unions because unions i agree with you

00:36:37.500 you know in the in their original format really did have a reason to exist these are people working in

00:36:44.040 factories in mines with really rough conditions you know they're they're not being subject to basic

00:36:50.620 employee protections you know this was before osha this was before all sorts of regulations that protected

00:36:56.680 workers and unions were the proto version of that they existed to protect the basic safety of

00:37:03.480 employees and to give them you know reasonable controls especially in a time and i think unions

00:37:08.800 really rose during one of the we're at the second peak of this but at the first peak of really high

00:37:14.920 levels of immigration remember when we looked at immigration peaks and valleys in in united states

00:37:20.940 history and we were like around the time that unions first rose we were at a peak and now we're at another

00:37:27.540 peak and so unions also existed because it was really really easy for companies to just be like fine i'll just

00:37:37.800 hire an immigrant who will do the work without any of the protections and so i understand why they first 1.00

00:37:43.540 existed writers don't need protections they don't need breaks like this they don't need i mean okay

00:37:52.280 i actually i understand why some writers do and and there are some like for example say you're filming

00:37:59.000 some reality tv show on some island like that there was that guy who was filming when when tex was born

00:38:04.980 like in in the triage room i'm talking with with the camera guy about like the other work he's done

00:38:10.140 and he talked about this one time when like i think he got bit by something poisonous in like

00:38:15.040 in the ocean and tahiti and stuff and like it's kind of good to have a union when you're in another

00:38:19.720 country working incredibly long hours standing in water being like stung by stingrays you know while

00:38:25.900 filming a bunch of entitled bougie like sluts i don't know what he was filming i can't remember what 1.00

00:38:30.780 the show was about but like yeah you probably want to make sure that you don't get totally screwed over

00:38:35.340 because a lot of weird dynamics can take place when you have like a small

00:38:39.000 crew of people and like you're isolated in another country i get it but this whole thing of like

00:38:45.080 well but for writers we need protections like oh my god what will happen if i'm not given you know this

00:38:51.620 size of writer team or if i if i'm forced to use technology to be more efficient it's just so

00:38:59.680 overblown uh i don't like that level of mission really what unions do so typically the way a company

00:39:05.020 works is if they can find somebody to like do a job cheaper and better than the existing employees

00:39:10.200 they're going to take that individual right it's their imperative if they've if they've investors

00:39:15.440 it's their fiduciary responsibility what a union tries to do is to try to get in the way of that

00:39:23.680 to differentially get more resources for the employees and what that causes as simona and i have

00:39:31.720 pointed out is the union is the collective bargainer of that employee who asks for a higher salary

00:39:37.160 without understanding that that makes them first on the chopping block with unions it's asking for

00:39:41.860 a higher salary without understanding that that makes the entire company more likely to go out of

00:39:45.940 business criminal short-sightedness all the jobs that they represent well they they face functionally

00:39:50.920 a union boss faces functionally no no negative repercussions for a company going out of business

00:39:56.420 even if everyone who well yeah because i mean they'll lose their job immediately if they don't

00:40:03.040 right they do but they don't they don't really think about that like in terms of like how they

00:40:06.640 push for things etc and so they're they're instead of employees attempting to increase their value to

00:40:12.540 the company or their differential value they they think okay how can we get more and you can get

00:40:16.560 temporary benefits from this it just eventually causes those industries like everyone's like oh look at

00:40:20.760 all the things detroit unions won for auto factory workers and it's like in what happened to all of

00:40:26.380 those auto factories right like when they differentially were able to get around that system 0.85

00:40:32.260 they did and the system collapsed it is ultimately catastrophically bad if a union forms was in your

00:40:39.640 industry where this gets really really nefarious is when unions form in public sector industries where

00:40:46.140 they just have no business being at all because then the industry can't fail i mean you just get

00:40:50.320 it happening to the extent where it just becomes comical and kids aren't being educated our old

00:40:54.540 recording software company decided to like quadruple prices so we decided to try a new one and

00:41:00.460 unfortunately we lost the last 10 minutes of simone video so we won't be doing this again because on

00:41:06.680 this one we only lost the last 10 minutes of video where she only said a few things so it's not that big

00:41:10.920 a deal but on the other one that we recorded today we lost the entire recording from simone

00:41:17.100 all right love you simone and we may do a separate video if people want on the history of like the the

00:41:22.860 miss history of unions that you've heard where you believe that unions actually ever really helped

00:41:27.200 anyone instead of just set up industries to fail that that is that is what unions did is they teed up

00:41:32.640 the failure and poverty of many parts of the well united states of europe of etc well no it was an

00:41:40.420 optical reason the idea was just can we fight back against these giant kingpin whatevers and the 0.99

00:41:46.660 answer was is they the kingpins were not being as ruthless to you as you thought they were there was

00:41:52.140 a reason often for what they were doing right they were trying to maximize the productivity of the

00:41:56.540 industry and you just weren't making yourself that valuable he or she said something about how unions

00:42:02.360 kept us from offshoring jobs right but those people existed in other regions so as soon as something

00:42:07.000 unionized in one region another region would end up replacing it unless there had been an enormous

00:42:11.120 sunk cost capital investment in something that couldn't be moved i was busy listening to my manga

00:42:16.280 so it's okay that you made me win i can't believe you discovered that do you think it's ai or

00:42:23.900 it's a hundred percent ai somehow and i think there's even a website that you can probably go to to do

00:42:28.640 this it will just automatically read in the right language the manga for you and describe what's

00:42:32.380 to tell you what's happening yeah that's what's so cool about it i'm so intrigued by this because it

00:42:38.240 sometimes gets things wrong like who's speaking which a normal person wouldn't get wrong but an ai

00:42:42.320 might get wrong yeah yeah the bubbles are sometimes i guess you have to sort of infer

00:42:47.420 a lot no like you'd be able to tell by like little marks on the the the speech bubbles who they're in

00:42:54.900 relation to can you really but the little mark may not be obvious to an ai now i know you have the

00:43:00.940 brain of an ai simone and so you see these marks and they're a this is very true i reached back out

00:43:07.340 to temple just to get an idea if we should do filming with them i appreciate you pushing back

00:43:12.540 and we're gonna talk so we'll get to the we'll get to the bottom of this we're 30 today with the

00:43:18.920 team looking yeah and temple's and temple's not this week right it's next thursday it's next thursday

00:43:25.100 yeah okay and what else what are we doing for dinner tonight it's night two of that curry i was

00:43:35.340 thinking of doing it on toasted hawaiian buns no that's always going to be harder to eat oh yeah

00:43:42.200 sandwiches just fundamentally don't make sense when you when you take them away from what they originally

00:43:46.900 were which was gambling food which was actually portable yeah i like sandwiches when they're made

00:43:54.760 with sandwich meats the problem is the sandwich needs to be more understated i think was cheese

00:44:00.480 being the predominant flavor and it doesn't work very well of like curry's the predominant flavor

00:44:05.380 or something no it's true like yeah any sort of sloppy joe or like yeah i mean yeah sandwiches

00:44:11.000 tea sandwiches really are the truest form of the sandwich that is what the earl of sandwich

00:44:16.720 presumably had invented so that he wouldn't have to leave the card table and stop hemorrhaging money 0.93

00:44:21.640 in a stupid pointless game and the fact that people now associate sandwiches with like hoagies 0.67

00:44:28.440 and philly cheesesteaks and subs like those are not sandwiches you cannot i don't know in your channel 0.99

00:44:32.820 somebody even eats something like a philly cheesesteak i don't either everything falls the

00:44:36.980 yeah it's i hate sandwiches except for tea sandwiches because you can actually eat them

00:44:41.960 without everything falling out you can take a bite yeah and what else was i gonna say in regards to

00:44:49.400 yeah i i'll just with rice okay looking forward to dinner tonight oh by the way the curry that you

00:44:57.240 keep making that you seem to think is mango curry is definitely a panang curry really oh

00:45:02.800 anyway well i will get started in a second well and for our fab i mean i've got to think about

00:45:10.920 what to do to promote it do you have any ideas

00:45:13.180 i mean i think it's more persistence it's more time we're not doing the wrong stuff and reaching

00:45:24.540 out to influencers who talk and write about these platforms but we're gonna have to be persistent and

00:45:29.680 keep in mind the the second and third times that i reached out to people each time we would

00:45:35.000 inevitably catch one additional person who didn't respond to the first email or the second email

00:45:39.780 because they were on a break or they had stopped checking that email or whatever it might have been

00:45:44.140 so i think a lot of this comes down to persistence and the same goes for ads

00:45:50.380 we should reach out to alex cruel and see if he wants to test the agents

00:45:56.180 that could be fun yeah anyway how many people he reached i haven't really been working on the

00:46:03.360 agents for a while because i've been working on getting all the other features to be top-notch

00:46:06.660 because like that's our major selling point but i think we're about ready to launch agents

00:46:09.580 um the main reason i'm afraid of putting them in production is they have this habit of

00:46:14.620 disabling turning them off and it's run out of credits and so like and i've got to make sure that

00:46:21.920 they don't run like infinitely and make us go broke or something right you know so oh like okay so

00:46:27.560 they're not uh they even don't you have a kind of a hard stop when credits are on my computer the way

00:46:34.860 i turn them off when they go crazy is i just turn off the back end i cannot do that on production

00:46:39.660 you can't create a hard limit to credit you can but stuff like that can do go off or not trigger

00:46:51.800 correctly or and that's what's been happening okay well let's make sure we get that down first

00:47:00.580 because the downside is non non-trivial thanks for the work you're doing on that okay i'm so excited

00:47:07.200 for this one for people who wonder what we're talking about we have like an ai chat bot like

00:47:11.920 adventure thing where you can use any of the major models to play ai adventures be they like

00:47:17.240 companions or not safe for work or whatever our fab.ai and we're going to be releasing like

00:47:21.580 agentic agents very near future that is sort of like claw open claw but like way more intuitive with

00:47:27.620 way more features and that's smarter than open claw i don't want to take time to explain how we are

00:47:34.060 able to make it smarter than open claw but we are okay so explain this to me like i'm trying to show

00:47:39.160 my ai friends like like this one down here okay i mean get up get up what are you trying to do you're

00:47:47.320 trying to show them the map on your screen yeah and i'm trying to show and i'm showing and i'm trying

00:47:54.800 to show this guy what are you trying to show all of the people here that where they should attack

00:48:01.680 at the enemy base and where should they attack at at at the islands that are not connected to us

00:48:09.660 like that one that one and that one right there why you attack the islands because they're enemy

00:48:16.240 islands the ones that are not connected to us how do you know they're enemies because they tried to

00:48:22.980 retreat and they made other islands with their boats so they so i decided to attack them all right go octavian 0.94

00:48:31.800 yeah

Based Camp - February 27, 2026

The Union's Union is Protesting Unions (How Hollywood Broke)

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