After the infamous “grab her by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape, many expected footage of Donald Trump’s hundreds of hours in “The Apprentice” boardroom to yield something just as incendiary. But outtakes from the show were never leaked. One of the plausible reasons why this footage hasn’t seen the light of day is that, simply put, many of the employees with access to the footage feared the end of their careers.
It’s a concern that highlights the dangers of working in an industry without job security or union representation.
On a Seattle radio show this week, comedian Tom Arnold claimed the existence of an old edited video of Trump “saying every dirty, offensive, racist thing ever.” Explaining why “The Apprentice” staffers who made the reel never tried to release it, Arnold said, “They were scared to death. They were scared of (Trump’s) people. They’re scared they’ll never work again.”
Similarly, a Vanity Fair article breaking down the yearlong effort by the media and the Clinton campaign to obtain “Apprentice” tapes claimed employees “feared reprisals, or simply worried that blowing a whistle would prevent them from getting jobs on the sets of other reality programs.” One industry employee told the magazine, “They are all terrified of being sued. … Most of these people are freelancers, and there is no one that is going to protect them.”
Unscripted television blossomed in part as a union-busting device. During and after the 1988 television writers’ strike, networks developed shows like Cops and Unsolved Mysteries to maintain programming in the event of another walkout. These shows were cheaper to produce because of the lack of union contracts (particularly because they didn’t have to pay out residuals after the fact).
Producer Mark Burnett, left, entrepreneur Donald Trump, and wife Melania Trump attend the after party for the season five finale of “The Apprentice” at the California Market Center on June 5, 2006, in Los Angeles.
Photo: Michael Buckner/Getty Images
The rise of reality TV arguably prevented a 2001 writers walkout, and though a 2007 strike ended with the Writers Guild winning a decent contract, they did not organize reality shows to boost their bargaining power. This is beginning to change — editors on Burnett’s “Survivor” actually have a union contract — but the vast majority of the industry remains nonunion. And nearly half of all programming on broadcasting and cable is unscripted, moving Hollywood away from its labor roots.
Those producers, editors, and writers who transform thousands of hours of footage into something coherent, if not watchable, are typically contract employees who move from job to job, none lasting more than a few months (this makes union organizing extremely difficult). Independent production companies create and sell the shows to the networks, and their profits increase with how much they can exploit their workers. Freelancers get no health care or pension benefits, vacation or sick days, and often no overtime, amid hazardous field conditions. Time sheet falsification and wage theft run rampant.
Perhaps most important, your future career depends on good working relationships with production companies and supervisors. If Mark Burnett threatens to prevent you from working again if you cross him, that’s a credible threat, since employees find their next jobs through recommendations and repeat business. Even though staffers could have leaked material anonymously, the risk of ending their careers loomed larger, because nobody in the industry is looking out for the individual worker, who competes with hundreds of others to land a gig. Blackballing in such an environment is simple.
Unions can protect workers from blackballing threats by raising grievances. They can ensure the fairness of contracts like confidentiality agreements. They can police industries on behalf of workers. Their absence pushes all the power to producers like Burnett, which can collude on wages and threaten workers to bring them to heel.
The lack of bargaining power for nonunion contract workers has become a hallmark of the U.S. economy. New research from Harvard’s Lawrence Katz and Princeton’s Alan Krueger finds that 94 percent of the 10 million jobs created in the Obama era were temporary, part-time, or “gig economy” positions. This hands tremendous power to employers to dictate terms of employment, and to even break the law, without pushback. And blackballing threats are perhaps the quintessential example.
Threats that “you’ll never work in this town again” should not have been an impediment to anonymous leaking of material on Trump that someone may have considered in the public interest. The fact that it was, that people didn’t think their identities would remain hidden and that their career would end, speaks to the climate of fear that grips the unscripted TV industry. And it increasingly characterizes the U.S. workforce, where the boss has disproportionate power and control.
Do I believe Trump said something offensive? Of course.
Do I believe there was a moment where he said every dirty, offensive, racist thing ever? That’s about as believable as Pizza gate. Lets not get too excited about this.
must be true..since everything we know of trump suggests that he would NEVER talk like that!…rolls eyes
“[[[ It’s a concern that highlights the dangers of …..violating the terms of your employment by leaking intellectual property for personal gain ]]]
There I fixed it for you.
[[[ It’s a concern that highlights the dangers of working in an industry without job security or union representation. ]]]
That’s why people in Hollywood join the Church of Scientology.
EVERYTHING on MSM (including programs like Celeb Apprent) are run like prison camps.
Just give all of your property to the CoS and you’ll be taken care of like a typical slave, too.
We need to have a united, strong REAL opposition party to challenge Trump and future right populists: We must move out of the Dem Party… & drag Bernie with us… here’s how: We created a petition to Bernie. Click here to sign: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/the-new-democratic-party?source=c.em.mt&r_by=13175233
The Democratic party is embarrassingly out of touch with the American public. We are calling on Sen. Bernie Sanders and his group “Our Revolution” to establish a new political party. If you agree, please sign and share.
Hillary and Obama are moving to Kenya to set up a Utopian society. Clinton Foundation is expanding their offices, there.
Maybe you’d like to go, too?
Is Melania working without a contract, working conditions, and union representation? Heard in front of Trump Tower: “FREE MELANIA!!!”
Why are you blaming Trump for the way the industry has always worked? Did Trump co-found the actor’s union? Did he help Sarnoff set up the radio monopoly in the ’20s?
Garbage. What on air talent or producer would ever trust someone again if he/she leaked damaging video?! This has nothing to do with politics… it has to do with trust.
While people grouse over the union issues and employment dynamics of this “article”, we are still left with the fact that it is chock filled with speculation, rumor, and inuendo.
“Tom Arnold says that he heard… etc…” …and then launches into detailed theorizing about how it might be possible the rumors are true, because “blah blah blah… and the changes in television and media.”
So shall we presume Tom Arnold is a neutral party? Why is that? What is this piece even supposed to be about?
I am inclined to believe that Trump is far from lily white, regards to sexism and vulgarity.
That said… and as much as I love Glenn Greenwald’s writing… there sure are a lot of writers on The Intercept whose work product can’t be described as “journalism” using even the laxest definition of journalism.
of fucking course they are. every employee working for every company in the world is scared of reprisals for giving away company secrets.
What I find a mystery is the working public’s aversion to Unionizing. Of course that isn’t helped by 150 years of anti-union propaganda.
If a business can organize its self to harness its economic strength an individual is not going to stand a chance to equalize the working relationship so it is fair for both parties.
Business has organized it’s self in to trade groups and use the economies of scale to lobby the government more effectively and pay for the campaigns of individuals that have beliefs that benefit the businesses that fund them. The only way to level the playing field so all citizens are treated fairly is to look at the example of business. The public then needs to organize themselves so they can concentrate their political power and compete equally for political with business.
In a society where competition and winning has risen to a pathological level those who are at the pinnacle of power have little or no moral control about pushing competition to the extreme where wining justifies killing, sickening and destroying the lives of the powerless.
In the face of business interests so set on extracting as much wealth out of the public as they are capable of that they have lost any rational concern about the public’s wellbeing, the greater part of the public distrusts the work of the unions to fight for them.
So, what’s new about this? Employees since the beginning of time have feared being fired for any number of reasons. What is really disturbing is the total lack of concern from journalists about the well-being of Julian Assange. I find it more than disturbing, disgusting being the correct word. At a time when freedom of the press is under attack like never since the last world war, don’t journalists realize that the future of their profession depends in great part on the well-being of Julian? He did ask everyone to watch his back, and the entire profession is letting him down like a pair of used socks.
findingassange.com has still not provided proof of life they pretended to have days ago. assange.net has declared… Well, I’ll let you discover that for yourself. So, what gives? The life of a fellow human being, who has maybe spared us thermonuclear war is worth less than a superficial Trump-produced reality show that will never change anyone’s life?
Julian has not been seen alive since Oct 4th. That was over 2 and a half months ago. If you do not have access to him, maybe one of you colleagues does. Give him a call, please. We cannot let Julian down. Doing so is letting ourselves and our freedoms down as well. The perpetrators he has exposed do not take a break for Christmas, and neither should we.
getting back to the subject, workers have fewer rights than ever. that’s really disyturbing.
Yeah, things were so much better for them in good old days before OSHA, EEOC, product liability law and various unions.
Say what you will about Trump’s intellect, he has no trouble grasping the nuances of intellectual property.
Good point. As this indicates,the establishment is united in screwing the “little people.” I mean, what the hell do we expect from a Hillary Clinton supporter like Donald Trump? Kisses?
Trump’s With Her (1.30 min)
The Bosses expect kisses from you. And you know where you’re supposed to kiss ’em.
Good! They should fear reprisals. They are paid to do a job. They sign non-compete, non-disclosure and other agreements to not reveal any footage of any kind. That’s called theft.
If they did, they would, and should, be unemployable. Who would hire anyone who steals private property and shares it with the world? The entire crew would lose everything.
Furthermore, many people, I would say most people, utter unimaginably bad things at times and the fact that the media somehow feels it is their right to publish everything someone might say is beyond the pale.
PS. Jaime is dead on.
The Masters thank you for your obedience.
do you get paid for yours?
what obedience are you talking about?
I don’t obey anybody I’m not required to obey by law or contract. That’s the whole point. Law or, in this case, contract. When I sign on the dotted line (usually on the paying ice of the agreement), I am expected to honor my agreement.
Somehow you seem to think that your agendas supersede these worker’s obligations. Maybe they might, if what they were not disclosing was evidence of a crime, like Edward Snowden (bless him) did, but at best, what these people might have is evidence that Donald Trump is an asshole. Everybody but Donald Trump knows that (and he probably knows it too).
It seems you feel that they should breach their agreements to satisfy your need for more evidence of the obvious.
The real problem Is that the Democrats nominated the only jackass that couldn’t beat him. Good going! Yea Democrats!
The editor should have vetoed this one: It’s all speculation, except for the referenced article whose supremely ironic money quote is ” the Clinton campaign would also obsessively try to find the tapes up until Election Day.”
Clinton campaign attempted to obtain leaks from Trump’s business. Why isn’t that the headline?
I am no Trump fan and would be happy for these tapes to be released if they existed, but I agree – it seems speculation without any real smoking gun here.
Could it be true? Certainly. Would it be as bad as implied if true? Probably. Did he give any real evidence that tapes existed but were held for fear? Not really.
Were any such footage available for pilfering, it seems likely the price the DNC (or any number of hungry news outlets) would pay to obtain it would remove any concern about future employment for whoever boosted it. There would likely have been a bidding war among all the usual suspects.
To suggest the notoriously leftist entertainment industry would blackball one of their own who got the goods on Trump seems quite far-fetched. The thief would more likely be regarded as a tribal folk hero.
In other words, this seems a rather desperate effort to promote a work of pure fiction supported only by entirely imaginary evidence. That doesn’t even qualify as fake news, since there’s no ‘there’ there.
Even on a slow news day, how did this tedious “story” get past the TI editors?
If all these people are just freelancers working on interchangeable dreck reality shows — how does the industry exclude competition from a hypothetical competing show that hires people who have been blacklisted? That’s what I want to know.
Your hypothetical would never happen because Hollywood’s a small town filled to the brim with cowardly “yes men” and women trying to do one thing – not get noticed/fired from their hyper-hierarchical studio/network system. The brave, independent producer you describe would simply contradict his character and end your argument if he fucked around with the “dreck” reality genre, as you describe it. Your hypothetical is a catch 22.
If the headline and the lede had been related to the actually-important content of the story — the abuse of unorganized and contract labor — this would have been a much better piece.
Distorting it into yet another silly, standard partisan hit on Trump, based upon allegations of behavior that is relatively trivial in the context of, for instance, his apparent threats to revive a nuclear arms race, is the latest in a series of examples of the deterioration of TI’s editorial quality and integrity.
Several issues intertwine themselves I(n this article (unionization, employer retaliatory behavior, Trump’s history of racist and misogynous behavior, the nature of the American work economy, among others); my focus here is upon the demonization of unions and the glorification of business “supremacy,” predominantly promoted by Republicans (our Democratic legislators have much to answer for about this issue as well).
Some members of my own family lambaste unions for protecting labor incompetency (as a teacher I have seen too many examples of this), but my counter-argument addresses what functions as a far stronger set of rules (overwhelming business influence peddling and a labyrinth of laws progressively drowning workers in slave-wage hell, the resultant gutting of the middle class, and the 10th circle of hell for those toiling at the bottom of the system). I see collective bargaining as a counterweight to a system impossibly skewed in favor of ownership. Taking a quick peek at wage stagnation since 1980 and the parallel attacks on unions, beginning with air traffic controllers during the Reagan Administration, I cannot state more strongly the immediate need for Democrats to revisit its earlier support of unions and to attack the system with the power of tens of millions of workers demanding their fair share of the pie (right now they have scant crumbs and bent utensils).
Furthermore, Northwestern University economist David Gordon points out in his recent book, The Rise and Fall of Growth, that productivity since 1970 has reverted to 1890-1920 levels, in his view partly because of the gross inequity of wealth and income (along with the failure of technology to produce results of the astoundingly unique and special 1920-1970 American economy, except for a brief 1996-2004 blip). Without the input of motivated and incentivized labor, and a corresponding sharing of wealth by business interests, issues like what these “gig workers” experience will inevitably intensify.
By all means, continue to shine a harsh light on Trump’s behavioral history, its more than likely impact in political, social, and cultural arenas, Obama’s horrific record on prosecuting whistleblowers, and the general fearful environment in the American business workplace.
But no more asking; no more pleading. Demand is not even a strong enough word for what labor desperately needs to adopt NOW. Wringing of hands about Trump’s agenda is truly warranted, but what is missing is action.
Adios Greenwald . TI is now a bigger thrash rag then the Enquier !!!!
“then”
Melania looked happier ten years ago. I think she now knows this nightmare of her hubbie’s self-aggrandizement ain’t gonna end well.
This is a terrible situation, especially the anonymous leaks part, since it only involved the most corrupt(ed) nominee/prez-elect humanoid in the history of the US presidency.
Maybe because these employees work twelve-fourteen hour shifts, they have no idea how to leak a story/video into a safe & anonymous drop-box.
Nothing from the ex-wives, either, which I think should have been a gimme. Fear drove this entire election, so it is not surprising.
It offends my senses that this disgusting male of a species wields that much/this power.
Seriously OT here, but I see no other choice.
How is it that when Ms Trump does “Coffee w/Ivanka” the story gets a box with a running bid tally for at least a couple of days; when it’s the brothers, it’s a story about selling access?
Do the reporters, news anchors, talking heads, editors, producers, and studio heads know or NOT KNOW what constitutes the crossing over the line of soliciting a bribe/selling access? (If the white President-elect’s white, blonde-haired daughter does it, it’s okay?)
“Maybe because these employees work twelve-fourteen hour shifts, they have no idea how to leak a story/video into a safe & anonymous drop-box.”
Oh, they know. The problem is the safe & anonymous part. Video footage is pretty carefully controlled by production companies, so if copies of something embarassing start showing up on the news, tracking down who had access to that footage may be quite possible to do. Add in the draconian non-disclosure agreements that contract employees are often asked to sign as a condition of getting the job, and a little paranoia on the part of said employees becomes very understandable.
This issue of non-disclosure agreements needs more exposure–the terms of the agreements are often simply unconscionable. For example, I was asked to sign one such agreement where any violation would have had me on the hook for a penalty of 1 million dollars per violation. Now, it may be true that any honest court would find such a clause to be unlawful and unenforceable, but defending yourself in court against such a charge could easily bankrupt the average, non-rich person. I did not sign the agreement, and I did not get the job. I was fortunate to be able to turn down the work. Not everyone is so fortunate.
Isn’t it common for professionally leaking a pre-broadcast to be frowned upon professionally?
“Reprisals”? You mean like for abrogating a pre-broadcast television non-disclosure or something?
Somehow, I get the impression that these clips would not have aired on the regularly scheduled show by the NBC Entertainment division.
No link to The Intercepts SecureDrop or a guide on how to leak documents safely? What are you waiting for? How about a bounty for the video sufficiently large to dissuade econimic worries?
David, you have a great economic mind. You can do better than this. Are you a neoliberal now? I find it ironic that you rant about leaks on an inane Hollywood show, when we have a sitting president who has punished and illegally monitored leakers and reporters with the greatest of zeal. Obama has used the Espionage Act more than any president in history to attack whistle blowers he doesn’t agree with.
The double irony of your amazingly useless article is that you are bemoaning the retaliatory nature of the Hollywood business, yet masterfully as a propagandist you ignore the acute liberal bent of Hollywood and instead pin the sins of Hollywood on a conservative … as if conservatives in Hollywood have more a penchant for secrecy and retaliation, a completely irrelevant and unproven axiom.
I know this election was hard on liberals. Do you need a therapy dog?
Jamie, correct if I’m thinking of somebody else, but I believe you are the person who responds to articles that you seem to have not read.
#1 – what is a neoliberal to you?
#2 – what does Mr Obama have to do with this?
#3 – Mr Dayen is referring to the retaliatory nature of reality shows, not the regular unionized sitcoms, comedies, dramas, etc. that have protections against the types of retaliation that these workers feared.
#4 – the “liberal” bent tends toward actors and musicians. I don’t think it’s the penchant for secrecy that people expressed, but as Mr Trump has been known to sue anybody in a skirt or a pair of pants, some people legitimately feared that. As far as Mr Burnett, who said he supported Dems in the past, he said he didn’t control the tapes.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/10/10/mark-burnett-apprentice-cant-release-trump-tapes/91875804/
“I find it ironic that you rant about leaks on an inane Hollywood show, when we have a sitting president who has punished and illegally monitored leakers and reporters with the greatest of zeal. “
“On a Seattle radio show this week, comedian Tom Arnold claimed the existence of an old edited video of Trump “saying every dirty, offensive, racist thing ever.” ”
Actually, the Blob claims that he HAS those tapes in his possession but, somehow, I predict, he is not going to produce them. Probably because he lies.
The problem with this story is that the author thinks that it matters. Uh, in case you didn’t notice the people who voted him in DON’T CARE about his behavior and the people who didn’t vote him in don’t need to know this – knowledge of one more violation isn’t going to make him go away or make them dislike him any more. Why not do a story searching for answers as to why there is a cognitive dissonance from people who care about climate change yet still emit carbon due to their lifestyles… then offer solutions to convince them to reduce their carbon footprint?
It does matter. Maybe next time, Dayen will write about the amount of rainfall in Tashkent–maybe that will do it for ya. I hate Trump, so I don’t need to know about this story? That’s the kind of logic that got us where we’re at today.
i like the idea that people who work on the production of shit are being treated like shit. thanks for a happy christmas story!
And may God bless us, every one.
Yeah, I’m just not sure why we’re supposed to get riled up over an issue like this, nor why it should be another sin on which to blame Trump and Trump alone. Trump is condensed evil, we get it. Now, can we move on to either a different topic or, at the least, a different aspect of it.
It’s starting to feel like every Intercept article is published for the sake of publishing something – the go-to story being some version of “Look at what horrible thing Trump did / is doing!” I get that not every story can be the reveal of corruption at the highest levels or further whittling down of our privacy and basic freedoms, but for the love of God and for your own good, you guys might focus on writing fewer stories, concentrating only on those with true gravity and bearing on the larger world. Otherwise, we’ll start becoming even number, while the distinction between small evils and HHUUUGE evils grows more difficult to discern.
What? Trump is going after gender equality? Are we sure HE’S not an Islamic Extremist? I mean, have you seen those gaudy hotels? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/us/politics/state-department-gender-equality-trump-transition.html