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FORWARDED MESSAGE
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Subject: The Globalization Horror Picture Show
To: Multiple recipients of list CORP-FOCUS
The Globalization Horror Picture Show
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
A rebellion is brewing in Hollywood not on screen, but behind the scenes.The
Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America and other entertainment
industry unions are protesting against runaway production of film and television
production.
Since 1990, the proportion of U.S.-developed films and television productions
produced outside of the United States has soared by nearly 100 percent,
according to a study commissioned by the Directors Guild of America and the
Screen Actors Guild. According to the study, conducted by the Monitor Company,
a management consultant firm, the number of economic runaways production
located outside of the United States for financial, not creative, reasonsrose
from 100 in 1990 to 285 in 1998.
The vast majority -- 85 percent--of the out-of-U.S. productions located to
Canada, with most of the rest going to Australia or the UK. Productions are
migrating to Canada for a simple reason: lower costs. The Canadian
dollar has plummeted in value as against the U.S. dollar in 1990s. Wage rates
have risen at a slower pace than in the United States. And the Canadian federal
and provincial governments offer major tax subsidies to film and TV productions.
Overall costs are 25 percent less in Canada than in the United States.
To many workers in Hollywood, especially camera people, grips and various
production workers, as well as lower tier actors and directors (supporting
actors, stunt people, associate directors and others) the Canadian shift
has become a serious jobs issue. If a film is shot in British Columbia instead
of Hollywood, Tom Cruise does not lose a job. But his stunt man may find himself
replaced.
>From the Canadian perspective, of course, things look quite different. To
those in the Canadian industry, the runaway productions are bringing jobs, in a
relatively high-paying, low-polluting industry. What makes this point of view
particularly compelling is the overrunning of Canadian media in the last couple
decades by the U.S.-based multinational media giants.
Less than 1 percent of English-speaking screen time in Canada is devoted to
Canadian film productions, says Garry Neil, a Canadian consultant on cultural
policy issues. Pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America has
stymied Canadian attempts to adopt domestic movie distribution regulations
designed to build up Canadian counterparts to the Hollywood studios, and thus to
develop an institutional means of support for Canadian productions.
When Canada tried to foster space for its domestic periodicals against U.S.
competitors, the United States took the issue to the World Trade Organization
and forced revocation of the Canadian magazine protections .
(Canada had sought to ban split run publications those produced for the U.S.
market and then sold in Canada with the same copy but Canada-specific ads. The
fear was that Canadian publications, sold in a market approximately one-tenth
the size of the United States, would be unable to compete with U.S. publications
that could cover editorial
costs from the much larger U.S. market.)
Efforts to promote Canadian cable channels, including a Canadian country music
station, have foundered in the face of the economic clout of U.S. media
companies.
In this context, it is hard to blame the Canadians for offering tax breaks and
aggressively courting the U.S. movie and TV show makers. If they cannot nurture
their own industry, why not lure the U.S. firms to locate production in Canada
But the rank-and-file U.S. film industry workers are also right to perceive a
threat to their livelihoods.
Right now, the U.S. unions are responding to the runaway problem by campaigning
for federal and California tax breaks designed to offset the Canadian tax
subsidies. They say these should be wage-based tax credits,
but there is no getting around the fact that the benefits will accrue to the big
production studios.
We are thus in the middle of a race to the bottom in tax giveaways, a zero-sum
game in which the only ultimate winner will be Warner Brothers , Disney, Fox,
Sony and the other giant media companies.
The fact is, [says Rafe Greenley of the Screen Actors Guild] in a global
economy, the one thing that can move [most] easily is TV and film production.
There are no factories to relocate, no heavy equipment to move. Even cultural
production, supposedly one of the great strengths of the U.S. economy, turns out
to be prone to the destructive dynamics of corporate-driven globalization.
Unless public outrage forces a rewrite of the script, this is story set to have
an unhappy ending, with the bad guys laughing all the way to the bank.
***********************************************************************=
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for Megaprofits
and the Attack On Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999,
http://www.corporatepredators.org).
Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or repost the
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