With Paramount Deal in the Balance, Teamsters Meet With FCC Chair Over Job Protections
Teamsters leaders are leveraging a relationship with the Trump administration to push for worker protections in the Paramount-Skydance merger as the future of one of Hollywood's legacy studios hangs in the balance.
The union's general president and head of its entertainment division met with Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr on Monday to raise concerns about the corporate marriage's potential impact on the Hollywood workforce. Sean O'Brien, Lindsay Dougherty and two other union leaders called for Skydance's past 'pro-worker commitments' to be a condition of the merger or for some other kind of worker protection agreement, according to a recent FCC filing.
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Submitted by an attorney for the Hollywood Teamsters, the filing argues that Skydance has previously described support for workers and unions but 'news accounts of their statements to investors paint a very different picture of likely post-transaction job cuts.' The union met with Skydance executives twice to talk over potential workplace protection measures, including covering all new staffers with a union contract, according to Local 399 counsel David Goodfriend — but it has not received any commitments in return.
As a result, the union met with Carr on Monday in apparent hopes that Carr, who has promised tight scrutiny of the merger, uses his muscle to achieve measures that protect workers.
The meeting comes as fears about job cuts hover over Paramount's offices in Los Angeles and New York following the deal's closure. In Hollywood, the Teamsters represent thousands of drivers, casting and locations professionals and animal handlers and trainers.
Carr called the Teamsters meeting 'productive' in a post on the social media platform X. In its own post the Teamsters said the FCC should 'either should memorialize Skydance's pro-worker commitments as a merger condition or encourage the parties to reach an agreement on how best to protect workers post-transaction.'
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Skydance, the Teamsters and the FCC for comment.
Under O'Brien's leadership, the Teamsters union has engaged with the Trump administration even as other major American labor groups have distanced themselves. After meeting with Trump during his candidacy, the union broke with its decades-long streak of supporting Democratic candidates and declined to endorse any presidential nominee in 2024. O'Brien then became the first Teamsters president to speak at a Republican National Convention and his 1.3 million-strong labor group later supported the White House's nominee for U.S. Secretary of Labor, Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who in her first term in Congress was considered fairly labor-friendly.
But the union and Trump haven't always seen eye to eye. On March 25 the labor group denounced the administration's nomination of Crystal Carey as the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, with O'Brien calling her a 'bad choice' who wants to 'decimate labor unions and destroy American families.'
For his part, Carr has been eager to make the most of the opportunity that Skydance's pending acquisition of Paramount has presented. He has in media appearances suggested the FCC will take 60 Minutes' editing of a Kamala Harris campaign interview into account in its review; that interview is of keen interest to Donald Trump, who has sued CBS over it. In January CBS said it would turn over transcripts and feeds of the interview to the FCC owing to pressure from Carr. Mergers and acquisitions of media companies is an area squarely in the FCC's purview, which cannot be said of Section 230 and more tech-adjacent regulation that have also been Carr hobbyhorses.
Though a Georgetown-educated career D.C. insider, Carr has a history of trying to position himself as a friend to blue-collar workers and even one himself. The FCC vet has taken trips up to TV towers in places far from Washington, posing for photo ops and extolling laborers' work. In February he did just that in Alabama, saying afterward 'It is always a fun experience to get up in the air and hang with a tower crew.'
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The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
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When President-elect Donald Trump nominated Jared Isaacman to become NASA administrator, it seemed like a brilliant choice. Business entrepreneur, private astronaut, Isaacman was just the man to revamp NASA and make it into a catalyst for taking humanity to the moon, Mars and beyond. Isaacman sailed through the confirmation process in the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), by a vote of 19 to 9. He was poised to be confirmed by the full Senate when something so bizarre happened that it beggars the imagination. The White House suddenly and with no clear reason why, pulled Isaacman's nomination. After months of a confirmation process, NASA was back to square one for getting a new leader. Ars Technica's Eric Berger offered an explanation as to why. 'One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats,' he wrote. 'He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget.' But these facts were well known even before Trump nominated Isaacman. Trump himself, before he ran for president as a Republican, donated to Democrats and was close friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Berger goes on to say that a source told the publication that, 'with Musk's exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman's nomination.' The idea that Isaacman's nomination is being deep-sixed because of Musk runs contrary to the public praise that the president has given the billionaire rocket and electric car entrepreneur. Trump was uncharacteristically terse in his own social media post. 'After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA,' he wrote. 'I will soon announce a new nominee who will be mission aligned, and put America First in Space. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' CNN reports that Isaacman's ouster was the result of a palace coup, noting that a source said, 'Musk's exit left room for a faction of people in Trump's inner circle, particularly Sergio Gor, the longtime Trump supporter and director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, to advocate for installing a different nominee.' The motive seems to be discontent about the outsized influence that Musk has had on the White House and a desire to take him down a peg or two. Isaacman was profoundly gracious, stating in part, 'I am incredibly grateful to President Trump @POTUS, the Senate and all those who supported me throughout this journey. The past six months have been enlightening and, honestly, a bit thrilling. I have gained a much deeper appreciation for the complexities of government and the weight our political leaders carry.' The idea that a man like Isaacman, well respected by the aerospace community, who was predicted to sail through a confirmation vote in the full Senate, could be taken down by an obscure bureaucrat in White House intrigue, motivated by petty spite, is mind boggling. Even Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who has not been fond of Trump's space policy, was appalled. He posted on his X account that Isaacman 'ran into the kind of politics that is damaging our country.' 'Republicans and Democrats supported him as the right guy at the right time for the top job at NASA, but it wasn't enough.' NASA is in for months more of turmoil and uncertainty as the nomination process gets reset and starts grinding its way through the Senate. The draconian, truncated budget proposal is certainly not helpful, either. Congress, which had been supportive of Trump's space policy, is not likely to be pleased by the president's high-handed shivving of his own nominee. Whoever Trump chooses to replace Isaacman as NASA administrator nominee, no matter how qualified, should face some very direct questioning. Trump's NASA budget proposal should be dead on arrival, which, considering the cuts in science and technology, is not necessarily a bad thing. China must be looking at the spectacle of NASA being mired in political wrangling, a leadership vacuum and budget uncertainty with glee. Beijing has its own space ambitions, with a planned crewed lunar landing by 2030. It's possible that the Chinese will steal a march on NASA, with all the damage that will do to America's standing in the world. It didn't have to be this way. Isaacman could be settling in as NASA administrator, deploying his business acumen and vision to lead the space agency to its greatest achievements. Instead, America's space effort has received a self-inflicted blow from which it will be long in recovering, Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
