Everyone seems to realize that the Writers Guild of America strike is a big deal — everyone except the Hollywood executives at the heart of the conflict.
Case in point: Warner Bros Discovery chief executive officer David Zaslav popped up on CNBC to reassure fellow studio bosses that relief was just around the corner.
“A love for the business and the love for working” would prevail, he said.
Clinging to that fantasy shows how disconnected he is from the workforce plugging away in his content factory. It also highlights how problematic the conversation about creative work has become.
Having fun while working — a rarity for many — should not trump being well and properly compensated.
To expect the “love” of work to motivate 11,000 striking writers to come back to their jobs while being underpaid is not only tone-deaf — it is also a bad business strategy.
Late-night talk shows have already gone dark, and the forthcoming seasons of hit shows that were in the middle of being written have been in limbo since negotiations broke down between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a coalition of major Hollywood studios.
It would be in the best interest of the alliance to meaningfully pick up conversations with the guild again.
The guild’s average minimum wage for a staff writer on a scripted series is about $4,500 per week, Writers Guild of America, East director of communications Jason Gordon said in an e-mail.
It sounds like a lot, especially when so many people across the country are scraping by on minimum wage.
However, even the writers who snag their dream gigs face long hours, expectations to do unlimited rewrites and are routinely unsure how consistently they would be employed. Popular streaming platforms are not under pressure to fill television time slots, so seasons have been truncated; 22-episode seasons are now 10-episode seasons.
This change has led to writers working, on average, about 20 weeks on streaming shows, compared with 40 weeks under the traditional broadcast model, Gordon said.
At US$4,500 per week, working 20 weeks adds up to what sounds like a decent salary — US$90,000. That is before accounting for taxes, union dues, work expenses and fees to managers, agents and lawyers.
The rise of streaming has also complicated the way residuals are paid — this is compensation for the reuse of a credited writer’s work.
Residuals used to be what writers could bank on to get them through periods when work dried up. When broadcast television ruled the world, a writer could receive checks for thousands of US dollars through syndication and reruns. Now those checks are coming in at US$8, US$4 or pennies.
According to a guild report, the weekly median pay for writers has declined substantially over the past decade, and 50 percent of writers work at minimum pay levels.
Many of these striking writers do enjoy, or even love, their jobs, but you cannot pay for things like rent, healthcare, gasoline or groceries with “love.”
Writers and the union are wary about the possibility of studios replacing human writers with artificial intelligence (AI). Studio bosses are mulling the idea of using AI to create new scripts based on a writer’s previous work, or asking writers to rework drafts of AI-generated scripts.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers refused union demands to be protected from AI use and offered “annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology” instead.
Anyone whose job could be affected by AI’s onrush should be watching this strike closely. The two sides remain at loggerheads.
However, Zaslav is optimistic: “Almost all of us got into this business, you know, with a lot of sacrifice in order to be part of that journey.”
“And so that’s what’s gonna bring us together,” he said.
Maybe, but glaring pay gaps could complicate that scenario.
Consider Zaslav. He brought home US$246.6 million in compensation and stock options in 2021. Last year his paycheck hit a cool US$39 million.
If Zaslav was making the same day rate he is trying to push on screenwriters, would he still be extolling the joys of work? Or would he be out there on the picket line?
Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist, activist and author. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Fast Company, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Esquire and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is a member and councilperson for the Writers Guild of America, East. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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