As the Hollywood union strikes have dragged on, key characters have taken turns in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
There is Fran Drescher, the comedic actress who, with surprising ferocity, has rallied the actors\u2019 union against television and film companies, and enraged studio executives in the process. Robert A. Iger, who leads Disney, publicly pushed back against the striking workers, and found himself jeered on picket lines as a robber baron.<\/p>\n
But one crucial participant has remained an enigma: Carol Lombardini, 68, the top union negotiator for studios and a 41-year veteran of Hollywood labor battles.<\/p>\n
For someone who sits at the center of two increasingly bitter strikes \u2014 writers walked off the job on May 2, followed by actors on July 14 \u2014 very little is known about her. Ms. Lombardini has not given an interview of more than a few words since 2009, when she ascended from the No. 2 job to become president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that bargains on behalf of the eight largest entertainment companies.<\/p>\n
Until now, her tenure had been marked by labor peace. Studios reached an agreement with the directors\u2019 union in June; the writers last struck in 2008, the actors in 1980. Over the years, she has told colleagues that cultivating a public persona would only undercut her effectiveness at the bargaining table. Or at least it would not help. She declined to comment for this article.<\/p>\n
Wanted or not, the spotlight has found her. Many union members blame her for the negotiating logjam that has brought almost all movie and television production in Hollywood to a halt. Partly because of her woman-of-mystery persona and partly because she\u2019s an easy target, Ms. Lombardini has become an avatar for the grievances of tens of thousands of striking workers. \u201cCarol can go kick rocks,\u201d Caroline Renard, a striking writer, said this month on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n
With her public personality absent, actors and writers have invented one. In May, someone started a parody account on X that has portrayed Ms. Lombardini as a crass tyrant declaring, \u201cI\u2019m a goddess of chaos!\u201d (Yes, she has seen it, an associate said. No, she is not amused.)<\/p>\n
Another group of screenwriters have mocked Ms. Lombardini online as a fuddy-duddy who hangs out at chain restaurants, the taunt being that no Hollywood person would be caught dead in one. (Her office is near a Cheesecake Factory in suburban Los Angeles.)<\/p>\n
Other union members seem to have simply grown curious about the Oz-like negotiator behind the curtain. \u201cWill we ever find out what Carol Lombardini is in the flesh?!\u201d Maridia Minor, a writer, asked on X last week.<\/p>\n
A few facts are known about Ms. Lombardini. She is a devoted baseball fan. She grew up in a working-class town outside Boston. And of course, she has enormous power. Ms. Lombardini is responsible for negotiating all 58 of Hollywood\u2019s union agreements, from contracts with the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, as the actors\u2019 union is known, to ones with the American Federation of Musicians and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. How she handles herself \u2014 union officials who have negotiated with her describe her as blunt yet cordial \u2014 can make the difference between smooth talks and a strike.<\/p>\n
Jeff Ruthizer, who spent 40 years as a labor negotiator at Disney, ABC and NBC and recently wrote a book, \u201cLabor Pains,\u201d drawing on that experience, called Ms. Lombardini \u201ca funny person\u201d who \u201cknows how to read a room and is tough when she needs to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, however, Ms. Lombardini is an employee, albeit one whose duties require deft ego management. She answers to moguls like Mr. Iger of Disney and Ted Sarandos of Netflix, who are not used to managing by committee. The other alliance members are NBCUniversal, Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon, Paramount Global and Sony Pictures. Ms. Lombardini advises them on a course of action, but they ultimately decide on a strategy and then she does their bidding.<\/p>\n
In late July, for instance, some company leaders pressed Ms. Lombardini to reopen negotiations with the Writers Guild. (The two sides had not met since early May.) While not adamantly opposed, Ms. Lombardini expressed skepticism; she was not convinced that the Writers Guild was ready to soften its stance, according to two studio chiefs and one studio labor lawyer involved in the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Ultimately, the companies directed her to re-engage with the writers.<\/p>\n
The subsequent talks have gone poorly, with the Writers Guild holding firm to demands related to staffing minimums in television writers\u2019 rooms and transparency into streaming-service viewership, among others. Frustrated, studio leaders told Ms. Lombardini on Tuesday to release the details of their sweetened proposal \u2014 which included higher wages, a pledge to share some viewership data and additional protections around the use of artificial intelligence \u2014 to the news media. It was essentially a strategy to go around the guild\u2019s negotiating committee and appeal to rank-and-file members.<\/p>\n
In a message to its 11,500 members on Thursday, the Writers Guild said it was \u201cundeterred by this latest tactic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Writers Guild declined to discuss Ms. Lombardini. Other unions did the same. (SAG-AFTRA, whose contract covers tens of thousands of movie and television actors, has not returned to the bargaining table in more than six weeks.) It appears, however, that union leaders have a grudging respect for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been around a long time, and she knows what she\u2019s doing, and she commands a lot of respect as well,\u201d Lindsay Dougherty, the lead Teamsters organizer in Hollywood, said in an interview with an entertainment trade news publication last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she\u2019s a fair individual,\u201d Ms. Dougherty added. (Teamsters represent drivers, casting directors and animal handlers, among other Hollywood specialties.)<\/p>\n
Ms. Lombardini, an avid Red Sox and Dodgers fan, had a working-class upbringing in Framingham, Mass., and was inspired to become a lawyer by reading articles about F. Lee Bailey, according to an associate. After getting a bachelor\u2019s degree in Renaissance history from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Stanford, she started her career at law firms in Los Angeles, specializing in labor by happenstance after one firm moved her from its quiet trusts and estates department to its bustling labor one.<\/p>\n
She has worked at the studio alliance since its creation in 1982 and is married to William Cole, a prominent labor lawyer whose clients have often included studios.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol has one of the most complicated jobs in Hollywood \u2014 and it\u2019s growing even more so \u2014 but I think she clearly understands and appreciates the challenge,\u201d said Barry M. Meyer, a former Warner Bros. chairman who worked closely with Ms. Lombardini. \u201cIt\u2019s actually been an integral part of her life\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n
By all accounts, Ms. Lombardini knows various union contracts cold, which is no small feat; the most recent Writers Guild contract ran 740 pages. Ms. Lombardini is not a zealot in the negotiating room, according to union officials who have sat across the table from her, but she can be brusque and unyielding. In a letter to its members this month, the Writers Guild said Ms. Lombardini would not engage on certain topics. \u201cCarol\u2019s response \u2014 something she repeated three times during the meeting: \u2018People just want to get back to work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past, studio leaders have prized her efficiency. \u201cCarol has done a very good job this past year,\u201d Kevin Tsujihara, who was the Warner Bros. chairman, wrote in a 2014 email that was made public as part of the Sony Pictures hack, noting that she had recently concluded six negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no public drama and all were concluded within parameters we had established,\u201d Mr. Tsujihara wrote. He recommended a bonus of $365,000, or 30 percent of her salary, which he listed as $1.2 million.<\/p>\n
The job has become much more difficult. For a start, the studio alliance\u2019s relatively recent additions of Apple, Netflix and Amazon have made its priorities more varied and unwieldy than in the past. The unions have grown more aggressive. And bargaining issues \u2014 the rise of artificial intelligence, for instance, and its potential to disrupt the creative process \u2014 have become more complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has to unify the various views of the studios and get everyone to agree,\u201d Mr. Ruthizer, the labor lawyer, said. \u201cAnd then she has the other job of negotiating with the other side of the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge now is greater than she\u2019s ever seen,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s bigger than anybody has ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n