More than 90% of the 3,775 writers who cast ballots in Los Angeles and New York voted to immediately end the work stoppage, capping the entertainment industry’s most contentious labor dispute in recent history.
“Rather than being shut out of the future of content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as TV migrates to the Internet and platforms for new media are developed,” said Patric M. Verrone, president of the WGA, West.
On Feb. 25, writers are expected to ratify a new three-year contract that ensures them a stake in the revenue generated when their movies, television shows and other creative works are distributed on the Internet. Whether the benefits from the new contract will be enough to offset the income writers and others lost because of the strike is a matter of debate. (LA Times 2/13/08)
Now, it’s likely that you’ll hear lots of interpretations on who won, including from some people here. I don’t really feel confident to declare a winner, but the debate will continue for a while, and then there will be another fight. That’s kind of the nature of this game. But the one thing that was positive? This strike proved that the strike, as a tool, was not dead. It proved that workers still have some leverage.
Other experts believe the writers won a victory that transcends any financial gains. “It was a defining moment,” said economist Harley Shaiken, a professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in labor issues. “It showed that a very disparate group of individuals could act with real solidarity — and that packed real economic power.”
Now, let’s get back to making some decent TV, and can we just stop filming Tila Tequila? Seriously, tv execs, enough with that crap, yo. No, I really don’t care who Tila hooks up with tonight, and that’s not going to change no matter how many times you show her in lewd and suggestive positions with people of various genders.
And why is Ricky Gervais on HBO? That man should be on every single tv, not pay cable. Except, maybe not in music videos.
FULL DISCLOSURE: My company, The Pollux Group, is under verbal contract with the WGA as a communications facilitator.
The entertainment industry is one of the staples of California’s economy, and as you may know, the union that represents the vast majority of the people who write the syndicated shows we all watch-the Writers Guild of America-is going on strike. While I prefer not to be overly judgmental about the news coverage the strike has received, I have seen news reports across a wide variety of media that mischaracterizes the position of the Writers Guild on many of the negotiating issues that are causing the strike. I’d like to clarify what the WGA is asking for on many of the issues under contention (that is to say: this is not just a strike over DVDs by rich writers who want even more.)
Far more below.
1) Residuals. The AMPTP (the network execs) originally wanted to implement draconian rollbacks in the residual structure paid to writers. That’s where they started the negotiations. Needless to say, that is completely unacceptable: at any given time, 48% of WGA members are unemployed, owing to the “per-project” payment structure of screenwriting. The rank and file of WGA writers rely on residuals from previous work to make it day to day, and eliminating them would be catastrophic. We’re not dealing with a bunch of greedy rich writers who are out for even more.
2) DVD sales. As things currently stand, the WGA receives a .3% share of DVD sales. On a $15 DVD, that amounts to a measly 4 cents paid to the people who wrote the show in the first place. The only reason the residual rate is that low in the first place is because during the 1988 negotiations, the AMPTP argued that home video was yet an unproven market, and could be a losing investment for them. Well, now that home video is a proven moneymaker for the studios, the WGA is asking for an increase to .6% of DVD sales. That’s an extra 4 cents on the $15 DVD in question. That’s it.
3) Permanent Downloads. This is a huge sticking point, because both the WGA and the AMPTP realize that permanent digital downloading of entertainment media over the internet is the next big thing. Even though permanent downloads are far more profitable for the AMPTP because of the lack of overhead involved (essentially, pure profit minus the hosting costs), the AMPTP wants to apply the same residual payment structure to permanent downloads that they currently do to DVD sales. The WGA, which has already been shafted for 20 years on DVD sales, wants a greater percentage. And just like they did with home video 20 years ago, the AMPTP is once again saying that internet downloading is too uncertain a source of revenue for the WGA to get the 2.5% (yes, two and a half cents on every dollar of internet broadcasting revenue) that they’re asking for, instead of the 3/10ths of a cent the AMPTP wants to give them.
Of course, Jon Stewart has a pithy response to that stale argument:
There are other issues involved as well: currently, writers who work on animation and reality (such as Calitics’ own David Dayen) TV aren’t under the same contract structure with the same labor protections as the WGA guildmembers who write scripted shows–but the studios and networks make just as much money off of reality as they do scripted shows, and the two are often syndicated right next to each other in the programming guide. The WGA would like to extend the protection of their contract to writers who work on reality shows and animation.
These are the things at issue here. And it’s not like the studios are struggling to get by either. Just check out these stats from Viacom’s latest earnings report (by the way, notice the messages to Wall Street about Viacom’s expanding presence in the digital market? Kind of conflicts with the whole “we don’t know how much the internet will take off” garbage they’re peddling to the WGA.
Some strike captains from the WGA have set up a group blog where you can get all the WGA strike coverage you can handle. Come check out United Hollywood and show us your support and leave feedback.
And one last shout out: this strike wouldn’t be meaningful without the support of other Hollywood unions, like SAG and the local Teamsters 399.
