2023 Writers Guild Strike

 

[The Writers Guild of America (WGA), the union that represents film and television script writers, went on strike on Tuesday, 2 May, resulting in the largest work stoppage for the WGA since the 2007-08 strike (5 November 2007-12 February 2008) and the largest interruption to television and film production in the United States since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.  

[Though Rick On Theater isn’t a newspaper and covering current events in the entertainment business isn’t its mission, I felt that because the strike has already closed TV production down for over four weeks, some explanation of the causes and issues would be informative for ROT’s readers.

[I’ve combined a segment from the PBS NewsHour that featured an interview with two members of the union with a news report on the strike and its effects.  My intention is to look at the practical repercussions of the labor action and the rationales behind them.] 

“HOLLYWOOD FACES LARGER WORK STOPPAGE
AS ACTORS THREATEN TO STRIKE ALONGSIDE WRITERS”
by Geoff Bennett and Dorothy Hastings

[The PBS NewsHour interview with WGA members Jeane Phan Wong (Walt Disney Pictures’ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, 2006; CW Network’s Arrow, 2012-20) and Sal Gentile (NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, 2015-19) was aired on 18 May 2023, about 2½ weeks into the strike.]

Geoff Bennett, “PBS NewsHour” Anchor: The [film and television] actors union SAG-AFTRA has called for a strike authorization vote. If the strike is approved, actors could join the more than 11,000 Writers Guild members already on the picket line, putting even more pressure on studios and networks.

[The deadline to vote on the SAG-AFTRA strike authorization is Monday, June 5. 

[The Directors Guild of America (DGA), the labor union representing the directors and directorial staff of film and TV productions, is currently negotiating a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the trade association that represents film studios, broadcast television networks, and streaming services.

[The DGA hasn’t yet called for a vote to authorize a strike. Such a vote would empower DGA leadership to call a work stoppage should contract negotiations necessitate it.  A DGA strike would likely result in a complete shutdown of TV and film production, especially if it’s in conjunction with a WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike.  After all, few shows—and almost no movies—are made without actors and none without directors.

[In the past week, many showrunners, the overall executive producer of a television series and often DGA members, have been finding it difficult to separate their daily functions from writing work.  (Many showrunners are also WGA members.)  AMPTP executives and DGA leaders are reminding showrunners that their primary duties must be performed as long as they don’t encroach on WGA services, but many occupants of those positions are feeling that those duties are essentially writing.]

The ongoing writers strike has halted production movies and scripted series like “Stranger Things” on Netflix, Apple TV’s “Severance” and Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.” Late-night TV shows have already gone dark.

For more on the strike and what’s at stake, I’m joined by two television writers and Writers Guild members, Sal Gentile and Jeane Phan Wong.

Thank you both for being with us.

And, Jeane, we will start with you.

This is day 17 of the strike. How are you and other writers faring? And remind us of what it is that you’re demanding.

Jeane Phan Wong, Member, Writers Guild of America: We’re basically asking for less than 2 percent of profits that they make from writer content, when it comes down to it.

And sustainable wages to be able to have a career in entertainment is what we’re asking for. And I was just out on the picket line this morning and felt really good with morale and all of us are — I drove in. I had a two-hour commute because I’m house-sitting out of town. It just felt really good morale just to see everyone, and especially when people drop off food.

It’s always nice when people feed the writers.

(LAUGHTER)

Geoff Bennett: So, Jeane, streaming has dramatically transformed the industry. This is a prolific era in American entertainment.

One would think that compensation would reflect that. Why hasn’t it?

Jeane Phan Wong: There’s a huge influence of the tech industry on streaming and the way that writers are being compensated.

So, I’m both a television and a new-feature writer. And, in television, our employment, we’re paid weekly, and the average number of weeks that a writer is working in a room has gone down a lot. And, oftentimes, writers are forced to stretch the money that they make in such a short amount of time over a longer time, and even, in some writers, some contracts with options and exclusivity.

Sometimes, writers are held and they can’t even find other work. And in feature writing, there’s just a lot that we’re asking for, more than a one-step deal, because there’s a lot of free work. And I know that sounds insane, but there’s a lot of just free labor that’s being asked as sort of like a courtesy and whatnot.

And so, basically, a lot of the tech industry has this — like, devalued ask for more work, sometimes free work, for less money, and asking writers to stretch our salaries over a long time.

Geoff Bennett: And, Sal, you work in late-night. That’s a high-pressure job, long hours. You have to be funny every day. You can’t necessarily wait for the muse to strike.

How have the changes in the industry that Jeane is talking about, how has that affected the work that you and your colleagues do?

Sal Gentile, Member, Writers Guild of America: Well, so I’m incredibly lucky because my show is on a broadcast network. And so we benefit from protections that the Guild has fought for and collectively bargained for over many years.

We benefit from protections such as minimum pay and residuals for the reuse of our material. And that makes it possible for writers to have a livable career and to go from project to project.

And the fear is that, because we all know streaming is here, and not only is it here, but it will continue to be the future, that will go away for all writers across the Guild, but especially in particularly for late-night and comedy variety writers, because the studios have essentially proposed taking all of those protections for late-night writers and comedy variety writers away.

And, as you mentioned, it’s a high-pressure job. You have to respond to the news every single day and write jokes about the news every single day. And it’s really hard to do that without the security, at least some minimum level of guarantee about what your contract is going to say. And the studios would like, in the future, if these shows are exclusively on streaming, to pay writers, not a minimum, not the residuals, but to pay a day rate, which would not make it a sustainable career for anybody.

And so, because I love the type of writing I do, I love late-night writing, I love writing jokes about the news, I want to — I want to make sure it remains a sustainable career, both for myself and my colleagues and for people who come after us, because there’s going to be plenty more insane news for the shows to make fun of.

Geoff Bennett: Sal, a sticking point in the writer strike has to do with artificial intelligence.

A.I. is already being used in entertainment writing. What are some of the concerns that you and your colleagues have?

Sal Gentile: Yes, so I want to establish one thing, which is that writers are not naive about technology. We know that A.I. is here. And we know that it’s the future.

And we want to make sure that we can use it as a tool creatively, in the creative process, rather than being replaced by it. And so I think, for example, the nightmare scenario, the fear is that studios will use A.I. to generate really bad scripts, or, let’s say, in my case, really bad jokes about the news. And then they will bring in a writer at a much lower rate with many fewer writers in a room to improve a bad script generated by A.I. and make it good enough to use on television or in film.

And so we want to just . . . we just want basic protections in place to make sure that they can’t do that. We’re not saying A.I. is going to go away. We’re simply saying, let’s put basic protections in place that will make sure it doesn’t replace us, but that we can use the technology as part of the creative process.

Geoff Bennett: And we should say we reached out to the group that’s representing the studios [i.e., AMPTP] to participate in this discussion, and they said they don’t speak on the record about ongoing negotiations.

But, Jeane, I will tell you, I spoke with a studio executive who made the point that the studios right now can literally afford to wait out the strike because they are in a cost-cutting mode right now. And this work stoppage for them is a savings. These are temporary savings.

How long are you prepared to stay out in the picket line?

Jeane Phan Wong: I[‘m] prepare[d] to stay out as long as it takes, because the fight for — to have a sustainable career, it’s an existential fight, for writers to be able to make a living, and it’s also a fight for a lot of working-class and middle-class writers.

We have a robust strike fund. I have applied to it just in case. And I will stay out here as long as I need to, and as people are sending food, and it’s been great to march and picket with other unions.

Geoff Bennett: Sal, how do you see it? And what would it mean if SAG-AFTRA, if the performers union, if the directors union [i.e., DGA] joined this effort?

Sal Gentile: The cross-union solidarity has been incredible on the picket lines. We have been joined by our friends and colleagues from unions across the industry.

And, as you noted, SAG[-AFTRA] has already called for a strike authorization vote, because everybody recognizes that this is an existential moment for the industry at large. The streaming era has broken the profit-sharing model that already existed that was in place. It was imperfect, but it was there.

[The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) were separate unions until they merged in 2012.  Actors’ Equity Association (AEA, or Equity), the union for theatrical actors and stage managers founded in 1913, remains independent.  (See “Actors’ Equity at 100,” 19 and 22 June 2013.)]

Make sure that the people who work in this industry can sustain a livable career, and it’s not an industry just for the lucky few, . . . but for everybody across all of these unions and guilds. And so everybody recognizes that. And I have felt the same incredible energy on the picket lines.

I know everybody, as much as we love writing and as much as we want to get back to our jobs as writers, everybody is committed to this cause and seeing it through across all of the sister unions that have joined us on the picket line.

Geoff Bennett: Sal Gentile and Jeane Phan Wong, thank you both for sharing your perspectives with us. I appreciate it.

Jeane Phan Wong: Thank you.

Sal Gentile: Thank you.

[Geoff Bennett serves as co-anchor of PBS NewsHour.  He also serves as an NBC News and MSNBC political contributor.

[Dorothy Hastings is a producer for national affairs at PBS NewsHour.] 

*  *  *  *
“THE 2023 WRITERS’ STRIKE, EXPLAINED 
— AND HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOWS”
by Lindsay Lowe

[The following report was posted on TODAY.com, the website for NBC’s daily morning television show, on Wednesday, 10 May—eight days after the WGA strike started.  It’s the best coverage of the background of the strike and the demands of the writers that I have found. 

[Any changes in the facts of the strike that have occurred in the ensuing three weeks will have been in the productions that have joined the list of those shut down or delayed or in WGA’s sister unions that have joined the walk-out in support of the writers, both of which are ongoing occurrences.]

Production has stalled on several major TV shows as writers face an “existential crisis,” the Writer’s Guild of America says.

It’s been a dramatic week in Hollywood, to say the least.

On May 2, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) — an alliance of two labor unions representing over 11,000 film, television, news, radio and online writers — went on strike, demanding higher pay and a stable pay structure, as well as fairer deals and contracts and provisions about artificial intelligence, per a list of WGA proposals.

The guild, when announcing the strike, called this moment an “existential crisis” for writers.

“We have reached this moment today not of our own choosing but because the companies’ assault on writer income and working conditions have pushed us to an existential brink,” WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser said on the organization’s website. 

For the past week, writers have been picketing the headquarters of major studios including Netflix, Amazon, Warner Bros., Universal Studios, and others.

Protestors have been brandishing signs demanding higher wages and targeting studio executives with tongue-in-cheek messages like, “Give up just ONE yacht” and “Pay your writers or we’ll spoil ‘Succession.’”

With the strike entering its second week, production has halted on several major TV shows.

“Saturday Night Live” went dark on May 6, and late night shows including “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” also stopped taping live episodes, airing reruns instead.

[Late-night talk show hosts like Fallon and Colbert (and their fellows) consider themselves writers and are, themselves, members of the WGA.]

Why are writers walking off the job? Here’s what to know about why writers are striking, and what the strike means for upcoming TV show and movie releases.

Why are Hollywood writers striking?

Writers went on strike after six weeks of negotiations failed with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a body that represents major Hollywood studios and production companies like Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount, Sony, Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Disney.

One of the strike’s key demands is higher compensation.

Median weekly writer-producer pay has declined 23 percent over the last decade when adjusting for inflation, according to a recent WGA report.

“Our wages have been falling in the last few years as the streamers’ profits have been skyrocketing,” writer Amanda Mercedes tells TODAY.com.

Mercedes, 36, who lives in Burbank, California, is a staff writer for the ABC crime procedural “The Rookie: Feds.” She says the rise of streaming services like Netflix have “changed the business model completely,” making it harder for writers to find consistent, well-paying work.

Whereas a successful show could have run for seasons during the cable era, giving writers steady job and learning for years, the binge-able, big-budget shows made for streamers are typically shorter and renewed with less consistency. Writers have to scramble from job to job.

“With traditional TV models, jobs were lasting six months, nine months, a year. I saw a writer the other day that said that her last job was four weeks, and that’s just not sustainable to be able to string together gigs in that way to make a living,” Mercedes says.

Streaming also lead to different format of writers’ rooms. Mercedes pointed to the rising use of “mini rooms” — scaled-down writers’ rooms that hire fewer writers for shorter periods of time, and often pay less, according to the WGA. In a mini room, a small group of writers typically work with the showrunner to break down the season’s plot points and work on scripts, which are finished without them.

“Mini rooms are crushing the ability for writers to string together jobs the way that we used to,” Mercedes says.

There’s a lot at stake for Mercedes, who spoke with TODAY.com just before heading out to join the picket line at the headquarters of Paramount.

Mercedes started her staff writing job last May and joined the WGA in September, just in time to be eligible for health insurance before welcoming a baby this February.

“It’s objectively a terrible time to have just broken in and started a family,” she wrote in a recent Instagram post. “But I will be wearing that baby on the picket line so that I have a shred of hope to stay in this business while raising him.”

Writers are also fighting for higher residual payments, or the payments writers receive when shows they have worked on are re-released, whether as reruns or in syndication.

According to the WGA, half of all writers now work in streaming, which pays fewer residuals for new and pre-existing shows.

Valentina Garza, a producer and writer who has worked on shows including “Wednesday,” “Only Murders in the Building” and “Jane the Virgin,” shared one stark example on Twitter of how low residual payments can be on streaming services.

“In case anyone’s wondering why the WGA is on strike, this is my streaming residual check for two episodes of ‘Jane the Virgin,’” she tweeted, sharing a photo of a check made out for three cents. “One for .01 another for .02. I think the streamers can do better.”

In the face of these industry shifts, the union is proposing regulations regarding artificial intelligence, pay structures to make up for the elimination of residuals, preservation of the writers’ room, minimum pay for streaming, and guaranteed number of on-the-week jobs for writers, per a WGA document.

The Guild’s proposals, according to the WGA, would cost studios $429 million per year. Studios’ counterproposals were $86 million.

How is the writers’ strike affecting TV shows and movies?

As the WGA strike enters its second week, some major shows and films have delayed production.

Some shows, including the CBS drama “Evil” and the Apple TV+ comedy “Loot,” stopped production after writers formed picket lines at filming locations. In solidarity with the writers, many non-writer crew members reportedly joined the strike, stalling filming.

Other shows are delayed because there are no writers to staff their writers’ rooms.

Writers for ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” were “supposed to be going back into the writers room (on May 3) to start on the third season,” series star Sheryl Lee Ralph told TODAY.com on Friday. “They won’t be.”

Similarly, the creators of “Stranger Things” announced on Twitter that filming for the supernatural Netflix series would be postponed.

“Writing does not stop when filming begins,” read a tweet from the show’s producers, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer. “While we’re excited to start production with our amazing cast and crew, it is not possible during this strike. We hope a fair deal is reached soon so we can all get back to work. Until then — over and out.

Several other shows have also paused production, including HBO’s “Hacks,” Apple TV+’s “Severance” and a planned “Game of Thrones” prequel, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight.”

On the movie side, pre-production was also paused on Marvel Studios’ vampire thriller, “Blade”, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Late-night talk shows, which rely on teams of writers, have also gone dark.

Seth Meyers, himself a member of the WGA, spoke in support of the strike a few days before NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers” went off the air.

“I . . . feel very strongly that what the writers are asking for is not unreasonable,” he said on his show on April 24. “And, as a proud member of the guild, I’m very grateful that there is an organization that looks out for the best interests of writers.”

Soap operas, meanwhile, may continue airing fresh content for at least a little while longer. As Vulture reports, “Days of Our Lives” has a backlog of new episodes that will stretch into the fall, while “General Hospital” has “about a month left” of new content.

Note that reality shows, sports, daytime talk shows and news shows are not affected by the strike.

When will the writers’ strike end?

It’s difficult to say when the writers’ strike will end.

The last time the WGA went on strike in November 2007, the strike lasted until February 2008, when the union reached a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The WGA also launched a strike in 1988 over residuals, spanning 153 days.

The more recent three-month strike disrupted the seasons of many hit shows at the time, including “The Office,” “Friday Night Lights” and “Breaking Bad.” The entertainment landscape shifted during those 100 days as a result, leading to a reality TV boom (for example, NBC launched the “The Celebrity Apprentice” during this time; “Cops” was developed during the writers’ strike of 1988).

In the meantime, several Hollywood stars have spoken out in support of the current strike.

“This is what I would be doing on TV without writers,” Mandy Patinkin wrote in a viral tweet, sharing a video of himself standing in silence.

Rob Lowe, Tina Fey, Fran Drescher, Seth Meyers, Mindy Kaling and other celebrities have also been spotted on picket lines over the past week. Pete Davidson delivered pizza to a strike in Brooklyn.

Mercedes says that while she has no idea whether the current strike will last as long as the previous one, she is confident that she and her colleagues will strike “as long as it takes for us to get the contract that we need.”

“The creativity starts with us,” she added, “and the rest of the industry can’t move forward without the words on the page.”

[Lindsay Lowe has been a regular contributor to TODAY.com since 2016, covering pop culture, style, home and other lifestyle topics. She is also working on her first novel, a domestic drama set in rural Regency England.

[Justine Bateman, who’s a filmmaker, author, and coder with a degree from UCLA in computer science and digital media management, wrote an op-ed column in Newsweek on 17 May that breaks down the issue of artificial intelligence in the film and TV industries.  I plan to republish Batelman’s exposition as a companion to this post on Sunday, 4 June,]