For the past few years, both our big and small screens have been screwed up with “eat the rich” stories. From Subrogation with White Lotus, from glass bulb with You, Hollywood has given the green light to a wave of projects that signal a kind of self-awareness about the astronomical wealth it controls. As Writers Guild of America members vote on a possible strike this week, we’re about to find out if the industry is ready to put its money where its mouth is.
From April 11-17, members of the Writers Guild of America will vote online to decide whether to allow a strike. Beyond jeopardizing some of your favorite TV shows, a strike will shape the economic fate of tens of thousands of writers whose working conditions help set the bar for many more. (If writers are not paid, writers’ assistants, script coordinators, production assistants, and others Definitely not paid.)
As a fantasy land where everyone’s creativity is supported, everyone gets rich and champagne flows non-stop, it is both easier and more fun to look at Hollywood only through its own historical mythology. But for a while, Hollywood had to admit that this was never the case. Instead, it is a machine, like any other industry, that systematically rewards some more than others. Just as companies in tech and media started the year with mass layoffs, the entertainment industry has spent months sowing uncertainty with mass cancellations as it continues to dry out some of its employees.
The past decade has upended the entertainment industry the way it once worked, and writers’ salaries plummeted as the streaming boom showered us all with more TV than we had time to watch. In March, the WGA released a report titled “Writers Aren’t Keeping Up” describing the pay declines that writers have seen overall. More writers now work on the union-negotiated minimum wage than a decade ago, the Guild reports. This includes showrunners, with 49 percent reported to work for minimum wage. (This is up 16 percent from a decade ago, according to the WGA.) As for workers across the country, inflation has taken a bite out of writers’ paychecks.
WGA’s current contract expires on May 1, and the studios have spent months preparing for a possible strike. Just like the most recent writer’s strike (which lasted 100 days from 2007 to 2008), you can expect to see more unscripted programs in the event of a strike, as these programs are not subject to the WGA convention. According to this Hollywood Reporter, some studios and networks have delayed the premieres of original content to ensure they have new material to be released, possibly in the fall.
Decisions made next month will affect far more than our favorite TV series. In March, the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance said in a statement that its “goal is to keep production active so we can all keep working and continue to deliver the best entertainment product in the world to consumers.” But what does it mean for us as consumers to simultaneously love our favorite series and know that their writers may be working without health insurance?
Abbott Elementary School writer Brittani Nichols noted in a Twitter thread last month that while story editors have guaranteed script fees, staff writers are not. Nichols wrote that even after working on multiple shows, many writers “had to repeat that entry-level job over and over.” Nichols wrote that this script fee could be “the difference between whether you qualify for health insurance or not.” (WGA and AMPTP representatives did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on the tweets at the time.)
The place has been shaking under the feet of writers and creators for years, thanks to both the COVID-19 pandemic and an ongoing flow bubble that seems ready to eventually burst. Disney laid off thousands of jobs earlier this year, and Warner Bros. Discovery has spent much of the last year canceling everything HBO Max has ever done. (So, after some layoffs.) Last year, months after Netflix launched an official website for fans called Tudum, the company laid off some of its staff (mostly made up of women of color that the company was actively missing from other positions). ) with only two weeks’ salary. Months later, Netflix laid off hundreds of employees and began canceling shows, following a decline in both subscriber numbers and stock price.
The cost-cutting that has plagued Hollywood in recent years and even months comes with a similar trend in both technology and media. At the same time, we’ve seen efforts to organize among hourly wage workers at companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks spread across the country. It may seem absurd to compare TV writers to Amazon warehouse workers or Starbucks baristas. Or, therefore, equating the writers of Disney shows to the park workers who sued Disney in 2019 for the alleged better pay some of them had in their cars. But as in any industry, the behavior of one group directly affects the others. For example, a successful WGA strike may support other unions in the entertainment industry while seeking similar or related protections in their own contracts.
Recently writer and showrunner Kirk Moore noticed on Twitter that the public’s perception of writers’ salaries may also conflict with reality. “Like contract work, especially when trying to get up,” he wrote. Short seasons, mini rooms, etc. With that, it’s difficult.”
“Part of what the authors are saying is that this used to be a job you could make a living in,” Moore added. “Now, many writers struggle to do this because methods [they are] paid or underpaid and overworked.”
Through media mergers, writers including man ruins everything creator Adam Conover said they found fewer venues to present. By reducing competition for writers’ work, these mergers made the fight for pay increases even more difficult – perhaps because of this, an increase in the number of authors working for the lowest wages. As Nichols put it in his Twitter thread, “[O]We have a minimum wage ceiling.”
In a world where studios have the money to spend $450 million for two Knives Out sequels, that shouldn’t be true for anyone. And next week, the thousands of writers who make up the WGA will decide whether they’re ready to pull the plug.