The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has asked the Justice Department to block Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery unless Paramount agrees to “substantive and legally enforceable safeguards” against job cuts and increased U.S. production.
The union said it told the Justice Department this week that the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery poses a “direct threat to film and television workers across the country,” including nearly 15,000 film Teamsters. The union said it submitted a detailed report to the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division this week outlining its concerns.
In December, Netflix struck a deal to buy the Warner Bros. studio and streaming business, but two weeks ago Paramount emerged as the winning bidder, but Netflix rejected a counter-offer. The Teamsters also opposed the proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. deal, similarly calling the partnership “a direct threat to good union jobs, the livelihoods of our members, and the very existence of our industry.”
Paramount Skydance announced in February that the waiting period for a Department of Justice investigation under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act had expired, meaning there were no “legal impediments in the United States to Paramount’s proposed acquisition of WBD.” This happened before the WBD board accepted Paramount’s offer of $31 per share. However, the Department of Justice has the freedom to object to the merger even after the HSR waiting period ends.
The proposed merger between Paramount and WBD would combine two of Hollywood’s five largest studios and bring together streaming platforms HBO Max and Paramount+, “further concentrating decision-making power in an industry already dominated by a few companies,” the Teamsters said.
The union said previous mergers in the media industry have a “well-documented track record” of harming workers, citing Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019 as an example. The Disney-Fox deal “has eliminated production departments, resulted in significant job losses and canceled projects,” the Teamsters said. “Paramount and Warner Bros. have not yet announced enforceable merger-specific benefits for workers or standards to protect against these risks, nor have they done anything to suggest they will do so.”
Paramount Skydance claims the combination with Warner Bros. Discovery will result in more than $6 billion in cost savings. Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison has insisted, including in comments to Warner Bros. Discovery executives at City Hall this week, that layoffs are not a major part of realizing these savings.
“This merger threatens the livelihoods of the very workers who built these studios into industry titans,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “We have seen what happens when corporations increase their power. Jobs are lost, production moves away from American society, and workers pay the price. The Department of Justice has a responsibility to block deals that eliminate competition and harm working families. We cannot allow this merger to proceed unless Paramount and Warner Bros. can guarantee legally enforceable protections for domestic production and labor standards.”
The Teamsters said the union will only support agreements that include enforceable promises to increase and maintain domestic production, strong labor standards and “guarantees against layoffs and union job erosion.”
Teemers, which has 1.3 million members nationwide, did not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
