TV and film writers are striking ‘about a systemic problem’

Entertainment writers are on strike from coast to coast. The ingenious sign they held up on the picket line (“Don’t pay us peanuts to write “Billions”“) are often as creative as their work.

Every three years, the Writers Guild of America, the union of television and film writers, negotiates a contract with the Union of Film and Television Producers. It is designed to cover issues such as minimum wages, health insurance and workplace safety for various programs. AMPTP represents Hollywood studios such as Paramount Pictures and NBC Universal, Network TV companies like ABC and Fox, and new streaming services like Amazon.

This year, negotiations began on March 20 and included series of suggestions Touching on the ever-changing nature of the industry, which has changed a lot in recent years, largely due to the proliferation of streaming platforms. Proposals include new terms on how feature film writers get paid; how many writers can be staffed on a TV show, and their writing time; the lack of minimum requirements for comedy/variety shows on streaming (such as late-night shows); and the role of artificial intelligence in creating new Regulation of materials.

Median weekly wages for writers and producers have fallen by 4% over the past decade, or 23% after adjusting for inflation, According to WGAAfter inflation, screenwriter compensation has also fallen by 14% over the past five years.

After negotiations stalled on May 1, the WGA announced a strike to begin on May 2.

“We’ve been trying to communicate face to face with the studio for six weeks, and it’s not just an economic negotiation,” he said Greg Iwinski38, is an Emmy winner who has written scripts for shows such as “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and was a member of the WGA negotiating team.

While wages were at the heart of the discussion, the issue was bigger than wages, he said: The strike “is a systemic issue”.

“It’s basically a freelance job,” says Kristen Becker, Professor of Film, Television and Theater at the University of Notre Dame. “You move from job to job,” for example, and each contract can look different from writer to writer, depending on the writer’s experience. Shows have different lengths and paces, movies have different budgets, and so on.

Although WGA contracts guarantee minimum payments, writers’ take-home pay can be much less. The minimum wage is pre-tax, and writers often also have to pay a team that may include lawyers, agents, and managers—a team that can claim a cut of up to 25 percent. They have to pay union dues (1.5% of their salary). And they have to save because their jobs are notoriously precarious and no one can be sure when their next paid project will arrive.

“Even if you’re on a hugely successful show, there’s absolutely no guarantee you’ll be on that show the next season,” says Miranda BanksChair of the Department of Film, Television, and Media Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and author of Screenwriting: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guilds.

There is simply no guarantee that you will be hired to write again.

Direnguela, 28, recently participated in the third season of HBO’s “The Other Two.” The season is expected to run for a total of 10 episodes, and the writers room meets for “about 15 weeks,” he said, “for a shorter period.” After fees and taxes, he’ll make about $3,200 a week for those 15 weeks.

There are also fewer and fewer opportunities for junior writers to advance. For example, screenwriters get paid to be on set beforehand and participate in production in case any storyline needs to be changed. They can then accumulate production skills for use in future projects.

This is less common now. “I did go and put a bunch,” Guerra said, “but it was unpaid.”

“The network model is that if a show is successful, it’s sold syndicated,” the entertainment industry lawyer said Jonathan Handel. Shows are available for international distribution and summer reruns, all with residuals.But in the age of streaming, shows “stay on the platform year after year,” says Handel.

best selling author Shirley HolmanThe 56-year-old joined the industry eight years ago, first as a writer and now as an executive producer of shows such as Apple TV+’s upcoming “Palm Royale.” She said the remaining checks she receives for streaming shows can vary wildly — and because many streamers don’t provide specific audience figures, “we don’t know how (the remaining amount) is calculated because they don’t tell us.”

“I got a check for $8 the other day,” Holman said. “What’s the point of that?”

award winning playwright Nest HutchinsonNow 42, she joined the industry in 2019. She wrote films like 2020’s low-budget indie “Theme,” starring Jason Biggs, even though she wasn’t unionized at the time.

As of May 1, the last day of the WGA’s 2020 contract, a screenwriter in the union who writes an original screenplay for a low-budget film (costing less than $5 million) will receive at least $81,220 in original treatment, a first for the union. Draft and final draft of a screenplay. Compensation will be divided into these three distinct components and excludes fees and taxes.

Typically, she said, “I think it would take six months (eventually took) a year, a year and a half”. It takes a long time for the studio to send back a notice, “and there’s no change in compensation. And it’s impossible to plan around. It’s impossible to budget around.”

Many screenwriters said they were asked to revise their scripts and were not paid.

This situation can feel unrealistic to the point of being untenable. “Girls have to eat too,” Hutchinson said.

Of the more than a dozen proposals outlined by the WGA, AMPTP rejected nine outright. AMPTP’s statement to CNBC Make It on May 3 included the following:

“AMPTP submitted to the Guild last night a comprehensive package proposal that included generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements to streaming residuals. AMPTP also indicated to the WGA that it was prepared to improve the proposal but was unwilling to do so. Therefore, due to The importance of other proposals that the Guild continues to uphold remains on the table.”

“AMPTP member companies remain united in their desire to reach an agreement that is good for the health and longevity of writers and the industry, and avoids hardship for the thousands of employees who depend on the industry for their livelihood. AMPTP is open to discussions with the WGA to Let’s try to break this impasse.”

The last writers’ strike took place in 2007 and lasted 100 days. Negotiations have stalled over DVD remnants and pre-streamed TV viewing over the Internet.

It is unclear how long this particular strike will last. For his part, Iwinski is prepared to stick around for as long as is necessary to keep the working parameters he and his fellow writers have come up with.

Fighting against the heads of big studios can be daunting, he said. But “we’re prepared for something this dire.”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC and CNBC.

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