The Strike
Posted by
Kevin
The Writers Guild is on strike. Some good info about the strike can be found here, and John Rogers explains the reason for the strike very well here. In essence, though, the studios don’t to give writers any share of the revenue from internet based distribution of television shows and movies. They want to keep all that money for themselves. That is frankly immoral and the best example of why we need unions. The studios would literally suck the writers of their creativity and not compensate them fairly for that creativity, despite the fact that the studios are selling, essentially, that creativity combined with the creativity of others. If there was no WGA, they could have simply imposed these rules on the writers in much the same way that WalMart imposes its working conditions on its employees.
Such imposition are not fair negotiations, by the way. Employees need the jobs to pay for food, clothing, shelter and health care and do not have the capital reserves required to wait out the companies in a negotiation. Corporations will always seek to keep wages as low as possible. Always. There is no incentive outside of unions and government regulation that will prevent them from doing so as the entire structure of a corporation is to wring as much money from the present with minimal regard to society or externalities. Strikes like these help prevent the erosion of the middle class and keep the economy and the job market healthier for all of us. The strike is about fairness for writers, yes, but it is also about fairness for the rest of us.
Regardless of the merits of their strike, you would think the Writer’s Guild could come up with a better picket line chant than “What do we want? Contracts! When do we want it? Now!”
It doesn’t even have proper pronoun-antecedent agreement.
Comment 11/8/2007
My favorite is the report that Steve Carell, who is both an actor and a member of the WGA, has been calling in sick for tapings of “The Office”, claiming he is suffering from “enlarged balls”.
Comment 11/8/2007
” In essence, though, the studios don’t to give writers any share of the revenue from internet based distribution of television shows and movies. They want to keep all that money for themselves. That is frankly immoral and the best example of why we need unions. The studios would literally suck the writers of their creativity and not compensate them fairly for that creativity, despite the fact that the studios are selling, essentially, that creativity combined with the creativity of others.”
um, ok… Perhaps a more objective approach would be to explain the current business agreement between writers and their various employers. How much do they get paid under current practices? I can not verify it, but last night I heard an average of $200,000 per year. This number does need investigation, don’t quote me. And there are a myriad of potential employers, not just one or two behemoths that dominate the industry. So perhaps they are not quite on par with Walmart workers. But it does read well, so good work in that regard.
As for your prediction as to what would happen if there were not union, as I have done in the past, I ask you this: are you in a union? If not, do you suffer these draconian consequences? If not, then perhaps they are not inevitable in all cases.
Comment 11/8/2007
While Ted may have a small point with the Wal-Mart complaint, this was a good post. I think Lean Left has been putting up some particularly good stuff of late. I hope you keep it up, because I have certainly been enjoying reading it.
Comment 11/8/2007
Steve Carell’s hilarious. I hope they settle soon though.
Comment 11/8/2007
Ted
First, no talk of averages; the average of my salary and the salary of the CEO of my company is several million dollars. I don’t make the lion’s share of that, lets just say. Even if the number is true, it is menaingless. And even if it was the median, please explain to me why that excuses the studio attempt to not pay for all of its uses of their product, or how that current salaray protects them form studios using changes in technology as an excuse ot deny them compensation?
I cannot, for obvious reasons talk about my personal work situation, but the wages as a whole have been stagnant for thirty years, thirty years that union power has been collapsed. Even if some sectors are temporarily in a better position than others, the overall economy suffers when employers have the majority of the leverage.
UPDATE: The median appears to be much lower:
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071101/man-the-geek-barricades-hollywoods-digital-strike/
Comment 11/8/2007
It is very difficult to quantify what writers get paid for sure, which is why I placed the disclaimers above. However, as a starting point, I would take only those Guild members that are actually working, and then further filter that down to those who work full time. The thing is, anyone can be a member of the Guild - having a job is not a prerequisite. And the reality is there are lots of people who would love to be a writer, so the number of Guild members vastly outnumbers the number of positions available at any given time. Perhaps some see this as yet another evil trait of those nasty corporations - I see it as a simple case of supply and demand.
As for the excuses of the studio to not pay for all uses of its products, I would have to see the contract between a writer and a specific studio. If that contract included terms that entitled writers to residuals from all distribution, then I would say the studio is in the wrong. If, on the other hand, the contract paid the writer a hefty fee and did not have a residuals clause, then I certainly would not consider the studio immoral for not paying on residuals. Put the shoe on the other foot. What if the contract called for a small upfront fee and a hefty residual package. And the show turned out to be a flop. Would the studio be immoral then as well?
Bottom line, without knowing and understanding the actual facts, it is nothing but knee-jerk reactionism to start accusing people of being immoral. In the end, I might agree with you, the studios might be screwing the writers. But you have not given me any indication that that is in fact the case. And sorry, but I’m not going to accept it as so just becasue you say it is.
Comment 11/8/2007
Ted
Back when DVDs were first coming out, the studios said “lets wait and see how much this will actually make, then we can re-adjust”. They never have. Standard writer’s contracts include residuals for standard distribution methods — in other words, writers aren’t given some upfront fee in lieu of residuals. They are paid one fee to produce the original work with the contracts set up to pay the writers more base don how popular the show eventually becomes. Now the studios don’t want to do that — they want to profit off the writer’s work without paying them one more dime than they already do. I don’t see how thats anything other than immoral. And we haven’t even touched the monopoly power inherint in the distributers being able to own their own content, either.
So while its possible that there are super-stars that have better deals, the median writer basically depends upon residuals and the contracts have always been structured in a “you write well, we distribute well, we all do better” manner.
I am 99% sure you have meet wga standards before you can become a member — simply wanting to be a pro isn;t enough, you actually have to be a pro.
Comment 11/8/2007
>I am 99% sure you have meet wga standards before you can
>become a member
And this is about where they completely lose my sympathy: when they as an organization abuse their power to decide who is and isn’t allowed to try and get a writing job.
Comment 11/9/2007
SD
Bullshit. No one prevents anyone from trying to get a job. if I write a spec script that FOX picks up, no one can prevent me form being paid by FOX. BUT FOX has to pay me according to the WGA contract. The requirements in question or for deciding who qualifies for the various professional services the union provides.
And I don’t have an ounce of sympathy for people who want to whine about “having to be paid by the contract.” Without the bargaining power of the union, no one would be making shit. They are deliberately making things worse for everyone else for a temporary personal advantage. We tried that once before — it was called the Gilded Age and it had such lovely features as nine years old dying in industrial accidents and people having to work 16 hour days and still not making enough money to feed their families.
Comment 11/9/2007
The WGA contract is a semi-closed shop: anyone who his hired to do more than a de minimus amount of writing for a contract signatory is REQUIRED to join the WGA if they want to keep their job.
Comment 11/9/2007
And semi-closed shops prevent the companies from using their immense power over individuals to break the collective bargaining. Sorry, I wasn’t aware that libertarians hated freedom of contract an freedom of association so much
Comment 11/9/2007
This is professional athlete envy - lite. So they make more money than you do, and they have a job that you might wish you had. Big deal, they are still workers. They don’t forfeit their rights to collective bargaining because they are more talented than you are at something you wish you were talent enough to do, and because they make more money than you do.
They are entitled to fair shares of the revenues somewhere in the neighborhood of the extent to which their work helps generate those revenues.
And corporations try all sorts of bullshit in these contractual squabbles. I remember working briefly for the Schlessinger family during their suit against Disney, alleging that Disney didn’t compensate the family for the use of Winnie the Pooh’s likeness. Disney alleged that the income sources that the contract governing the royalties didn’t mention the specific revenue streams the family was seeking compensation for. Of course the revenue streams were technologically advanced products and new business ventures that did not exist at the time of the contract, though the contract did include the technological predecessors of which.
I’d be surprised if the corporations aren’t trying to use some disingenuous legal or semantic loophole to make the case that the writers aren’t entitled to shares of revenue that simple common sense would dictate they are.
Completely valid point about wanting to see numbers just for full-time, working writers, Ted. But, raw salary is irrelevant to worker’s rights in this sense. Fair compensation is contextual, so the only question is whether the writers are currently being fairly compensated - the value of that compensation not withstanding.
Comment 11/9/2007
Sorry, that second paragraph is a mess. I think you get the point though. Disney was claiming the family wasn’t entitled to things because they weren’t in the contract. The things in question didn’t exist at the point of the contract. but the spirit of the contract clearly implied that the family was entitled to things of such a nature.
Comment 11/9/2007
“Fair compensation is contextual” I could not have said it better. I am going to reserve judgement on who is being immoral until I understand the context. Which includes studio profitability. Clearly it is immoral for writers to try to extort money from studios that are already losing money.. Ah shit, I can’t write like Kevin, even in jest…
“Spirit of the contract” hmm, I admit I have not studied contract law, but that is a new one to me. If there ever was a field that is all above explicitness and not spirit, it’s contracts. I would assume Disney won that one.
Comment 11/9/2007
Except we aren’t talking about negotiating over rates, we are talking about the companies flat out saying, yes, we are going to make money by distributing your work like X but we wont pay you one red cent for it. So sorry. Have a nice day.
I know you guys have a reflexive hatred of unions, but this isn’t even close. No one should be treated like that. It is, and oh I know, such a big bad liberal to use the word in relationship to a business how so very inexcusably lefty of me, but its effin immoral.
Comment 11/9/2007
I think it is pretty simple that if you are entitled to money from VHS sales, you’re also entitled to DVD sales. Even if the contract is worded, entitled to royalties stemming from, yada, yada, yada, VHS cassettes. In that contect, “VHS casettes” means home movies. Any attempt to argue that it refers solely to that specific medium of the distribution of home movies is clearly disingenuous. I don’t remember very many specifics, or the specific wording of the contract, and I only lent a small and brief hand to the family’s effort, but that’s the type of shit I’m talking about.
I’m no corporate contract lawyer, so I’m not very familiar with the (contrived) complications and nuances of crafting pedantic jargon to obfuscate simple concepts of justice in disingenuous and malicious attempts to extort those who actually do/did the real fucking work, so I apologize if “spirit of the contract” not an accepted term or idea.
And, it is not immoral, per se, for writers to demand more money from studios simply because the studios are losing money. If the studios are losing money for non-writer-related reasons, that’s not on the writers, right? They shouldn’t be complaining if the studios can’t sell any work because prospective buyers say the writing sucks! But, if I agree to pay you to paint my house, it wouldn’t absolve me of the obligation to compensate you fairly for your work if I had wagered my savings account on Kentucky beating Gardner-Webb.
Comment 11/9/2007
Well, let’s talk about house painting a bit. You are going to place your house on the market, and it appraises at $750,000. You think this is very low, and realize it might be due to the house’s shoddy appearance. So you contract with me to paint your house. In other words, I do the “fucking work” as you put it. You pay me $35,000. The house now appraises for $950,00 and you sell it in a week.
If you don’t come back to me and give me an extra $100,000 or so, are you an immoral asshole?
Oh, and by the way, you got three bids to paint your house. One was for $50,000, one was for $40,000, and one was for $35,000. Were you an immoral asshole trying to squeeze the working man by going with the lowest bidder? “Fair compensation” can be difficult to define.
Kevin, context please. If the agreement is now in place was “fair” when it was signed, and now, due to changes in technology and viewer preferences, the studios are making less money than they were then, it is still immoral for them to not pay royalties on this revenue stream? In other words, it is immoral for the writers to not get a bigger piece of the profit pie than before, just because there happens to be a technology change related to distribution?
How about this for a solution. The Guild could demand that all writers get paid equally, based on seniority. Like teachers or factory workers or most other unions. Distribute the earnings of the few highly successful writers to everyone else in an egalitarian manner. That seems like more of a brotherhood than the current setup.
Understand I am not claiming that the studios are in fact making less money - I don’t know. But as far as I can tell, neither do you. You automatically assume that the Guild should get what they are asking for because they are a union. I don’t. Nor do I assume they should not get what they want simply because they are a union. I reserve judgement until I understand the facts involved.
Comment 11/9/2007
Ted
Your analogy does not hold, and I am begining to wonder if you have read a thing I have said. The equivalent would be is you painted 20 houses, and then I only paid you for the work on 5 of them because the other 15 were in styles that were new this year.
And your point about it being fair is nonsense. So my broker is allowed to take my money and profit form a new kind of investment instrument because it didn’t exist a year ago?
And to answer the studio question: if the union knew the studios were going out of business and still tried to negotiate rates they knew would close them down, that would be immoral.
Comment 11/9/2007
Kevin, mine was a bit of a stretch, yours are advanced yoga. 20 houses would equate to 20 scripts. The broker could charge a different commission on a new product (they do).
Comment 11/9/2007
Ted
No, they don’t represent twenty scripts. Remember, we are talking about intellectual property here — the studio wants to use the writer property without compensation. What the broker can do is not the point: the studios are the equivalent of a broker who takes the profits I earn, turns around and then uses them to make more money for himself.
Comment 11/9/2007
wow. I can’t even formulate a response. One of us has a really distorted view of business, property, contracts, etc. I’ll say it’s me and exit. But know this - if you write code or music or TV scripts (or invent or reate anything) under contract, 99 out of 100 times you do not own the rights to your work. The enity that paid you to write it does. If you want to own your work, don’ expect to be paid to develop it.
Comment 11/10/2007
Ted
Those situations are different because you are paid outright for all the rights. It may not be equitable, but he contract is clear. In this case, the writers aren’t paid a standard salary and they are paid based how much of their work is distributed. right now, the studios are trying to distribute their work in a different manner and not pay them for it. How in Gods name is that ever supposed to be acceptable?
I really don’t see why you have such a hard time understanding this.
And, more to the point: just because the things are done a certain way does not mean that is the right way. We used to force people to work 18 hour days and live in factory towns. didn’t make it right.
Comment 11/10/2007
I’m with those who think the writers must get more residuals built into the profits of the producers of the movies, plays, programs. After all, they wrote the script. They don’t get enough residuals at this time. Salaries of actors are in the millions. Writers must get a better share of the profits.
Comment 11/10/2007