WGA STRIKE UPDATE: BAD NEWS

“What happens here is important because what’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor by means of when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run.” – Fran Drescher, President, SAG/AFTRA.

As of this morning, SAG/AFTRA is on strike after the actors’ contract expired on Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. PT and SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee voted unanimously to recommend a strike.

Hollywood’s actors and writers are both now on strike, for the first time since 1960. Despite the eleventh hour intervention of a federal mediator, SAG-AFTRA, the guild that represents about 160,000 performers, could not come to an agreement with AMPTP, which represents the major studios, networks, and streamers. The WGA has been on strike since May 2.

The combined strikes will paralyze the TV and movie industries, shut down the few remaining scripted productions, and likely mean that movie release dates, as well as the Emmy broadcast - originally set for September 18 - will be postponed.

Fran Drescher, the guild’s president, said in a statement, “SAG-AFTRA negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry.”

The AMPTP declared: “This is the Union’s choice, not ours. In doing so, it has dismissed our offer of historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses, and more.”

Let’s just stop right here and let you know what their “groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses” is: SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland retorted that “this ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday… They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned and paid for one day’s pay and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal I suggest you think again.”

Do you want to see shows where everyone but the main character in the scene is a digital fake?

Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement that the “studios and streamers have implemented massive unilateral changes in our industry’s business model, while at the same time insisting on keeping our contracts frozen in amber. That’s not how you treat a valued, respected partner and essential contributor.”

Right there is the problem: the studios want the writers and actors to consider that it’s still 1960; every contract since has basically been a modification of the 1960 contract, which gained residuals, pension and a healthcare plan (though SAG’s then-president Ronald Reagan sold out everyone - surprise surprise - by agreeing that no residuals would be paid for work performed before 1961). But now it’s 2023 and no part of the business works the way it did in 1960, or even in 2008 at the last strike.

All the unions are asking for is contracts that recognize the reality we all live in today. The shift from linear to streaming over the last decade has thoroughly disrupted the industry, impacting traditional compensation models, TV development cycles and consumer viewing habits.

For instance, a staff writer on a show now has a “non-compete” clause in their contract that says they cannot take additional work from a third party while they are “under contract.” This means that when the show is on hiatus between seasons, they cannot take work elsewhere, as used to be done frequently. Given that now there can be up to two years between “seasons,” you tell me how that writer pays their bills during that hiatus when they are not being paid and the pay they did receive for working in a “mini-room” on an 8-10 episode show didn’t pay enough to support them while the show was in production.

Right now, approximately 24% of WGA members qualify for a “platinum painted” health care plan, meaning in the previous quarter they were paid the equivalent of Basic Minimum Scale for a 30-minute sitcom, which is around $25,000 these days; nobody’s living “the rich life” here in L.A. on that. When I joined the guild 36 years ago, that metric was 86% qualified at any given time for a “solid platinum” health care plan.

Of course, at this point in every strike, some asshole says something really dumbassed, which in the past two WGA strikes probably doubled the length of the strike because the asshole’s dumbassery got the writers’ backs up and they felt threatened. In 1988, the asshole was that genius, Jeffrey Katzenberg, quoted as saying gleefully that “now is the time to break them.” I don’t remember which moron said what in 2008.

Anyway, on Sunday, the “clickbait media” (Deadline and Daily Beast) were reporting that, “Hollywood studio executives have revealed their endgame in the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, and it is quite evil... As reported by Deadline, the AMPTP allegedly plans to wait out the WGA strike. Several anonymous Hollywood executives claimed that there aren’t even plans to begin negotiating with the WGA until late fall. They indicated the hope is that, in the meantime, WGA members who are striking will go bankrupt and “start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” An anonymous executive stated that the AMPTP is hoping the WGA members’ situation will grow so desperate that they’ll demand the WGA leaders end the strike to avoid spending the holidays potentially broke and houseless.”

Richard Rushfield had it right about this: “As screwed up as our poobahs are, a conscious plan to get writers evicted from their homes and their children thrown out of school is a bit too cartoon villain to be credible. The quotes and paraphrases about the plan read like assholick bravado, perhaps of someone trying to sound more connected than they really are, or of some streamer with techie visions of crushing labor into the dust saying, we're all in this together — trying to railroad the others into standing firm.”

The AMPTP response: "These anonymous people are not speaking on behalf of the AMPTP or member companies," is probably one of the few honest things they have said in all this.

As one actor put it when asked if SAG/AFRA and WGA were unified, “Unified, yes. Overjoyed this is what we HAD TO DO to save performance labor from the fucking oligarch corporate billionaires, NO!”

Today the Writers Guild of America strike enters its 74th day. There have been no negotiations since a week before the strike began.

On Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger commented on the actors and writers strikes during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box. Speaking from the Herb Allen billionaire Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, he said, “It’s very disturbing to me.” Pointing to the deal AMPTP made with the directors last month, he called the expectations of actors and writers “not realistic” and accused them of “adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive…. It’s a shame, it is really a shame.”

Richard Rushfield wrote the following in The Ankler in reply to that:

“Just for fun, let’s take a look at the latest amendment to Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger’s employment agreement, as included yesterday in an S.E.C. filing. There’s a line that seems relevant today, as SAG-AFTRA joined the Writers Guild on strike for the first time since 1960 over claims that include the lack of a success metric in their compensation. “Your target annual incentive bonus opportunity,” the Iger contract now reads, “shall be five hundred percent (500%) of your Base Salary as in effect at the end of such fiscal year.”

“Yes, it’s a success metric, a pretty standard element of executive compensation, and one of several baked into Iger’s deal. It’s also the same kind of success metric that Iger is now calling “not realistic,” and that the other AMPTP studio members declined even to bargain over, according to sources at the negotiation table. And it’s one of the reasons that today epitomizes everything that has come to define this era of chaos, hypocrisy and class warfare in Hollywood.

“There was Iger this morning on CNBC, fresh from the two-year contract extension we all knew would happen despite the fact that were told just seven months ago that it would definitely not happen, sitting authoritatively amid the picturesque Idaho mountains at Herb Allen’s billionaire summer camp, talking starkly about Disney’s new era of austerity: the painful but necessary layoffs, the dispiriting fact that Marvel and Lucasfilm should be making fewer shows, that Pixar movies should cost less; how ABC and the linear networks, the cash cows of a bygone era that allowed Iger to pull Disney away from the other studios, “may not be core” to the company. Dark stuff.

“Iger, always a master of his own image, seemed to misplay the moment—even if he’s right about the dire situation that Disney and the other AMPTP companies face. He’s gotta know how each executive extravagance and tone-deaf comment has ricocheted around town and riled up the striking talent. Maybe Iger agreed to leverage his years of success and credibility to take the bullet for his fellow C.E.O.s. Warner Discovery’s David Zaslav surely loved that interview, because for once the knives were out for someone other than him.”

Sheryl Lee Ralph spoke to Vanity Fair about the strike: “Strikes are very difficult. Nobody wants to be in strike mode, but sometimes you have got to do what needs to be done. And I know as difficult as it is, people have to remember if real workers did not come together and organize, none of us would have a weekend. Because there was a time where workers worked seven days a week and it was unheard-of for them to get time off. So I just want everybody to understand that this isn’t about making more millions of dollars, because quiet as it’s kept, at least 80% of our union are plain old, ordinary, hardworking people who haven’t gotten a cost of living raise in 40 years, who are depending upon the kindness of big corporations, many of whom sometimes don’t really know what it is to be an artist. God bless them, you need people who can crunch numbers, but when it starts to crunch people, that’s not good. That is not good. And there’s something that must be changed about how business is done in show business in Hollywood, because the artists, the performers, the writers, are getting squeezed and it’s not right.”

Fran Drescher’s speech that kicked off the performers strike deserves to be quoted here in full:

“It’s really important that this negotiation be covered because the eyes of the world, and particularly the eyes of labor, are upon us. What happens here is important because what’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor by means of when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run.

“We have a problem and we are experiencing that right at this moment. This is a very seminal hour for us. I went in in earnest thinking that we would be able to avert a strike. The gravity of this move is not lost on me or our negotiating committee or our board members who have voted unanimously to proceed with a strike. It’s a very serious thing that impacts thousands, if not millions, of people all across this country and around the world. Not only members of this union but people who work in other industries that service the people that work in this industry.

“And so it came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads, but we had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right, when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment. We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity.

“Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us, as well as other labor unions, because at some point the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored. The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI. This is a moment of history that is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.

“And Big Business who cares more about Wall Street than you and your family. Most of Americans don’t have more than $500 in an emergency. This is a very big deal and it weighed heavy on us. But at some point, you have to say, “No, we’re not going to take this anymore. You people are crazy. What are you doing? Why are you doing this to us?”

“Privately they all say, “We’re the center of the wheel. Everybody else tinkers around our artistry,” but actions speak louder than words and there was nothing there. It was insulting. So we came together in strength and solidarity and unity with the largest strike authorization vote in our union’s history. And we made the hard decision that we tell you as we stand before you today. This is major, it’s really serious, and it’s going to impact every single person that is in labor. We are fortunate enough to be in a country right now that happens to be labor-friendly. And yet we were facing opposition that was so labor-unfriendly, so tone deaf, to what we are saying.

“You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change too. We are not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us. What are we doing? Moving around furniture on the Titanic? It’s crazy. So the jig is up, AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). We stand tall. You have to wake up and smell the coffee.

“We are labor and we stand tall and we demand respect and to be honored for our contribution. You share the wealth because you cannot exist without us. Thank you.”

“We had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity, I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us.”

“I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty that they’re losing money left and right, when they’re giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”

The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield may have captured the mood best with the lede of his Thursday newsletter: “Well, geniuses, you’ve done it again. If the goal here is to set some kind of leadership record for the most trainwrecks, meltdowns and catastrophes on one generation’s watch, then we’re on a good track.”

But that said, in the complete vacuum of any kind of big-picture vision from the studios, any sense of how this ends other than breaking the unions' will, those quotes may not be actually the truth as it stands, but they sure do capture the spirit of the moment. I mean, they certainly haven't said anything more collegial than that for the past decade or so.

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