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The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has urged the Justice Department to block Paramount Skydance‘s $111 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery unless Paramount agrees to “substantial and enforceable safeguards” against job cuts and supporting increased U.S. production.
The union said it told the DOJ this week that the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery poses a “direct threat to film and television workers nationwide,” including nearly 15,000 Motion Picture Teamsters. The union said it submitted a detailed report this week to the DOJ’s Antitrust Division outlining its concerns.
In December, Netflix had sealed a deal to buy Warner Bros.’s studios and streaming business before Paramount came in with the winning bid two weeks ago and Netflix declined to make a counteroffer. The Teamsters also opposed the proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. pact, similarly calling that combo “a direct threat to good union jobs, the livelihood of our members and the very existence of our industry.”
In February, Paramount Skydance said the waiting period on the DOJ’s inquiries under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act had expired, meaning there was no “statutory impediment in the U.S. to closing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of WBD” — which happened before the WBD board accepted Paramount’s $31/share offer. However, the DOJ has the latitude to challenge a merger even after the HSR waiting period expiration.
The proposed Paramount-WBD merger would consolidate two of the five major studios in Hollywood and combine streaming platforms HBO Max and Paramount+, “further concentrating decision-making power in an industry already dominated by only a few corporations,” the Teamsters said.
Previous mergers in the media industry have a “well-documented track record” of harming workers, the union said, citing Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox. The Disney-Fox deal resulted in “eliminated production units, significant job losses, and canceled projects,” the Teamsters said. “Paramount and Warner Bros. have not yet announced any enforceable merger-specific benefits to workers or standards to combat these risks and have done nothing to suggest they will.”
Paramount Skydance has claimed it anticipates upwards of $6 billion in cost savings through combining with Warner Bros. Discovery. David Ellison, Paramount Skydance’s chairman and CEO, has claimed that layoffs will not be a major part of realizing those savings, including in comments he made to Warner Bros. Discovery execs at a town hall this week.
“This merger threatens the livelihoods of the very workers who built these studios into industry giants,” Teamsters general president Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “We’ve seen what happens when corporations consolidate power: jobs disappear, production leaves American communities, and workers pay the price. The DOJ has a responsibility to stop deals that eliminate competition and harm working families. Unless Paramount and Warner Bros. can guarantee enforceable protections for domestic production and labor standards, this merger can’t be allowed to move forward.”
The Teamsters said the union will only support a deal that includes enforceable commitments to increasing and maintaining domestic production, strong labor standards and “guarantees against layoffs and erosion of union jobs.”
The Teamers, which has 1.3 million members nationwide, did not endorse a candidate for U.S. president in the 2024 election.
English (US) ·