Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1151081
64 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2019 compiled by Jeff Burman T he AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation, has called out Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and his 2018 salary after massive layoffs earlier this year, according to Patrick Shanley in The Hollywood Reporter in June. Nearly 800 employees lost their jobs in 2019. AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Liz Shuler called Kotick's 2018 $30 million compensation package akin to "legal highway robbery." Activision Blizzard has called 2019 a "transition year." Its net revenue for the first quarter was down to $1.83 billion and, in January, the company announced a stock buyback program that would authorize it to purchase $1.5 billion in stock as Kotick cut 750 jobs in February alone. Shuler said that such stock buybacks "artificially meet their incentive pay targets." She called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to "take action on corporate executives who abuse stock buybacks for their own personal gain." WGA MAKES NEW OFFER TO AGENTS The Writers Guild of America has made a new, two- part offer to Hollywood's talent agencies, writes David Robb on Deadline. The agencies can continue packaging and taking packaging fees on feature films and TV shows for one more year before switching over to a new 10 percent commission framework, admittedly a business model that hasn't been used in decades. In June, the WGA declared an impasse in their negotiations with the Association of Talent Agents, and offered to meet separately with the nine biggest agencies — all of which refused to meet with the guild. LABOR MAT TERS AFL-CIO Criticizes Activision CEO