Iger's Follies

One thing that Bob Iger has in common with the original head of the Walt Disney Company, Uncle Walt himself, is a certain suave way of dealing with labor relations.

1941 Disney Artists Strike

With writers - and, later, actors - striking over stagnant wages which leave the vast majority of these unionized workers at below subsistence level income as well as over residuals that have all but completely dried up in the age of streaming (putting them in the same position that musicians have been in for a few decades now) and also over the looming threat of what we laughingly refer to as "AI" being used to cut and paste a plagerization of other artists' work with no remuneration for it; "Daddy's Back" Bob seems to be unable to keep his foot out of his mouth.

With the strikes in full swing, Iger said this when asked to comment on them:

“There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic and they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

Now look, here at AA headquarters, we fancy ourselves realists. We know that Iger re-inherited a company that needed its bleeding wounds firmly stanched. The pandemic had done a number on it. The acquisition of Fox was a debt burden that was weighing heavily on the bottom line. Disney+ had no coherent plan with which it could stop losing money. A political battle was brewing between the company and the State of Florida (a battle over which we are staunchly supportive of the Disney side). This year's cinematic competition was unexpectedly fierce and moviegoers had been conditioned to not have to wait long to see Disney movies on the aforementioned, money-hemorrhaging, streaming service. And to top it all off, an activist investor group had almost taken over Disney's Board of Directors.

In other words, Brother Bob was stressed. The best he seemed to be able to do was bail water while the organization built itself back up behind him. But let's be honest, this kind of messaging is not great at the best of times and during one of the largest labor actions the industry has ever seen, the $78,000-a-day guy shouldn't be calling his primary work force, his artists, "unrealistic."

So he backpedaled a bit and paid some lip-service to wanting to negotiate in good faith and things quieted down, for a while.

But then the Skrull invaded.

Skrull Army - Marvel Comics

In what might have been a deeply unfortunate coincidence, Disney+'s new Marvel mini-series, "Secret Invasion" featured an opening credits sequence put together using - you guessed it - AI. This had likely been in the works for some time and almost certainly wasn't a reflection on the strike itself, but it was an extremely bad look, considering, and it didn't help that no one liked the series or its opening sequence.

WGA on Strike Outside of Disneyland - Photo Credit USA Today

Then the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) did something REALLY clueless. The organization called the Writer's Guild into a meeting with the promise of really getting into the nuts and bolts of negotiating; Bob Iger was one of the four CEOs in attendance. Rather than negotiating, the AMPTP threatened the Guild by promising to make public the current offer in order to take it "directly to the members."

WGA turned down the offer and within minutes it was published to the public.

The Guild:

"The companies’ plan from the beginning" was "not to bargain, but to jam us. It is their only strategy – to bet that we will turn on each other.”

The Guild did not have the expected internal revolution. If anything, it strengthened their resolve when they saw these kinds of underhanded tactics from the CEOs. Reports began coming fast and furious that Bob Iger was "outraged" that the settlement hadn't been taken and the strike ended.

An interesting throughline comes from all the reports of Iger's "outrage." As far as those of in Abigail's communications HQ can tell, no one knows what the source of it is. No quotes have emerged about Chairman Bob's anger. No one seems to claim to have been in a room where he expressed any such outrage. In most situations the question would be whether or not the story was true, but this is becoming a public relations nightmare for Iger - so recently touted as a returning hero - and the Disney company and thus the question now is, "How do we reframe the perception of our Bob?"

And that's where we get to this interesting line-item, "Former Biden Adviser Remi Yamamoto Joins Disney TV Comms Team." After what seems to have been a single day search between job posting and hire, Ms. Yamamoto, who worked on communications and press strategy for President Joe Biden's White House and was the President's travelling national press secretary, will now inhabit a job that includes the description, " ...also oversee teams for crisis communications and issue-oriented messaging."

Mr. Iger may have just been given a handler.

Remi Yamamoto

Abigail thinks he needs it.

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