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Writers Guild Strike Talks: An Early Primer
The Writers Guild of America contract with Hollywood studios ends October 31, and word of confusing negotiations has begun to reach the public. Sure, there's little reason for people to care, but there's little reason to honestly care how a football team does, either. The difference is a WGA negotiation is more contentious.
(I'm not kidding. A Guild friend, Dennis Foley, once said, "If you gave writers free money, they'd complain that it was the wrong denomination.")
Okay, there is a reason to care if you happen to watch TV or go to movies. It's not anything critical to your life, but negotiations can impact whether next year you'll be watching the new season of Lost or old reruns of Commander-in-Chief.
As a member of the WGA, I understand the importance of the public having a guidebook to follow the action properly. Therefore, it's good to prepare.
1. The two sides will get together, writers will present their demands, and the studios' chief negotiator will say, "No!" and walk away. He will do this for two reasons. A) He has no authority now to say anything but "No!", and B) the studios want to see whether writers will bicker.
2. The writers will bicker. Nothing should be read into this. As noted, writers bicker about everything. You must understand: by profession, a writer sits alone and creates imaginary arguments between characters. Some writers can juggle four sides of an argument without blinking.
3. Both sides will go to the press. Writers will point out that the studios make ungodly profits and screw everyone in sight. Studios will point out how many people will be laid off if writers strike against studios that make ungodly profits and screw everyone in sight.
5. The press will side with the studios. Three reasons. A) They don't have a clue who any of the writers are. B) Studio execs will actually call the press and talk about themselves. Writers won't call the press because they're pissed off at being ignored by them all the time. And C) No reason for the press to tick off an executive because, who knows, they might want to pitch one of their own screenplays to them later.
6. The two sides will get together again. Writers will point out that they make four cents for every DVD sold. Studios will insist that they haven't made a profit on anything since 1944, but that was an accounting mistake because it was a war year. Finally, the studios' chief negotiator will say, "No!," because he still doesn't have any other authority.
7. The Writers Guild will break into three factions. One side will not consider striking even if they were tied to a tractor and dragged naked through the La Brea Tar Pits. Another side believes aliens from Area 51 are conspiring to run the studios, and the only hope for humanity is to strike. The remaining 96 percent of the Guild is interested in a fair settlement.
8. Several production companies will offer to make independent deals with the Writers Guild. But this will fall through when the studios discover it and threaten to have the heads of those companies either killed or lose their power tables at Spago, whichever is worse.
9. There will be layoffs at the studios, as companies cut overhead, for reasons referred to as "belt tightening." These firings will continue even if there is no strike.
10. Writers will threaten vociferously to strike, make booga-booga sounds and look as wild and crazy as people think writers are, because if the other side doesn't think you are crazy enough to strike, they have no reason to settle.
11. The press war will ratchet up. Studios will give the two contradictory claims that A) all writers are filthy rich, and B) all out-of-work writers will strike because they are dirt poor. Writers will note that it is physically impossible for more than 6 percent of WGA members to be employed at any one time, and that out-of-work people strike as a last resort because they actually need the work.
12. Other unions will bemoan a strike, though actually love the WGA being contentious. They know whatever the WGA gets, they'll get too when their own contract is up. (In its entire history, the Directors Guild has only struck once, for about six minutes. Literally. That's not a joke.) Actors and directors don't have to strike -- without them, nothing can be shot. With writers, studios begin stockpiling scripts about three decades ahead. Half of the Producers Guild basement is loaded with unused teleplays for All in the Family and "Bonanza.
13. The two sides will meet yet again. Writers will point out that the studios made record profits. Studios will reply that despite making record profits, they somehow still lost money and actually all went out of business 30 years ago. They will therefore ask writers to take rollbacks in their pay and give up their first-born. Writers will agree to give up their first-born, but not take rollbacks.
14. Writers will prepare picket signs, and show an amazing lack of talent for writing protest slogans. How the brilliant creators of Oscar and Emmy-Winning epics can't come up with anything better than, "Fairness Now!" and "Let My Daddy Work!" will remain one of the great mysteries of life.
15. It will be announced that there is an impasse. Journalists will compete to see who can use the phrase, "Fear spreads throughout Hollywood," the most times. The current record-holder is Charles Granville of Daily Variety, with 3,647, set in 1988.
16. Just before the deadline, members of the Writers Guild negotiating committee will meet in private with powerhouse producers who have actual authority to force a "Yes!," and the basis of a fair deal for both sides will begin to at least be discussed.
17. The deadline will pass.
18. Whenever an agreement is reached - either heading off a long strike, or much later ending one - both sides will express how satisfied they are with the compromise. Neither will be.
During it all, there will always be people who think Writers Are Greedy. There will always be people who think Studios Are Truly Evil About Everything. Then there are the rest, who are smart, sensible and fair, who know that life is complex, that studios are only truly evil about some things, and that there are so many honest issues that always need to be resolved.
As events play themselves out, be sure to have a pencil ready to keep track. Remember, you can't tell the players without a program.
Updates as they occur...
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Thank you for writing this article - I learned a lot from it!
I just hope they don't strike because they would mean more non-scripted shows and I can't standy any more reality TV. I really can't take it.
I've never been totally comfortable with the notion that writing, that most personal and individual of activities, is unionized. Unions by their nature treat jobs as broad catagories and to minimize the differences between those distinct individuals who are doing the jobs. Hence, to the unions, all plumbers or carpenters with the same amount of time on the job (seniority) are considered equal, even though one may be a craftsman and the other a hack. Writing is an activity that defies the collectivization of unionism. I realize that we are talking about television and movie writers here. But I dread the day when all writers must join a union if they want to write for a living.
Actually, writing is largely a right-to-work field: you don't have to be a member of the Writers' Guild to be covered by the Minimum Basic Agreement, which is what's being renegotiated right now. The WGA will even let you register your stuff with them regardless of your membership status, albeit at a higher price for nonmembers.
Nicely done. Nicely written, that is. I'm in the "Biz" too. Even though my clients will be out of work as will I, I say, "Go for it writers." You guys are one of the few great guilds or unions that really are still functioning like labor should. Employers have money. Employees have work stoppage. That's it. No reason to accept gruel.
Despite "Variety's" Peter Bart's allusions to this as being tribal like the Sunnis and Shia (inappropriate by the way); it's more like the continuing class warfare that we see every day in the U.S. The writers are treated like they are in steerage while the stars and directors ride in 1st Class. The crews are treated even worse. Their jobs are being outsourced by shooting in Europe and Canada. Yes, some of us will be out of work for awhile. But unions need to start behaving like unions again. Enough is enough with the income disparity.
Yes, in the old days you had moguls who ran the studios and lived in Hollywood. Now we have GE and Sony and Viacom and Murdoch. Not the same as the Warners and Louis B. Mayer.
Keep up the fight.
Actors do strike and have done so... The commercial side of the business still hasn't bounced back for union actors since the commercial strike in 2000.
It's always fun to make fun of writers, since only a handful actually get paid a handsome sum for their work. Actors and directors alike should align themselves with writers because without the script, they are in the same trouble since all you have left are reality shows, that brain-sucking nexus we call entertainment.
In the end, the studio makes the money off reality tv, so why would they care about being fair to writers? How many decades did it take to get the "Best Original/Adapted Screenplay" moved closer (and thus of higher importance) to the Best Actor and Director noms during the actual ceremony? I understand that the greater public thinks it's ridiculous, but a true strike is so far from their memories, it's easy to be blase about it.
Actually, in television the writer is king due to the production schedule. But in both movies and TV, producers and studio execs actually fear the writers because, unlike actors and directors, writers don'T need studio access to do their work, requiring only a blank surface and something to deface it with. Also, people can see how an actor acts and a director directs, but nobody can see how a writer thinks.
I agree that episodic TV is a writer's medium. Film is a director's medium and theater is an actor's medium. What I mean by "medium" is that whoever's milieu it is, controls the final product. We don't need to know how a writer "thinks" to measures his worth. The written page - THE WORDS THAT COME OUT OF ACTORS' MOUTHS - are proof of writers' work. The lip service studios/networks give writers never balances out with the money. Hence, the threat of periodic Guild strikes.
Actors and directors don't need studios either. Actors can improvise, directors can make their own project. But everyone likes money, and the studios provide that.
And I think fewer people understand directing than acting or writing. Everyone has written somethig in their lives, and everyone has pretended to be someone else. Not many people have been in charge of bringing together all the elements of a production.
Actors and directors can also work without studios. (Theater, indies... Actors can improvise and do without writers and directors too.) But no one likes to work for free. The studios provide the money.
I also think more people understand how writers think that how directing works. Everyone has written something in their lives. Everyone has pretended to be someone else. Not everyone has been in charge of a production.
In other words, the same as the last time, right?
The last strike helped bring on the reality TV boom, if memory serves. Unless I'm wrong, dare I guess what will happen with this one? The mind boggles.
No, reality TV began with THE REAL WORLD on MTV in 1992--about four years after the last strike--and that was just a documentary of sorts.
The Real World didn't signify a "reality TV boom" as blueraven purports. The last strike was 2001-2002, and yes, at that point, reality TV with "American Idol" signified a considerable boom.
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