There is very little in scripted television that is new these days. If you don’t follow the news (and even if you do) you may not be aware that the WGA is on strike. WGA stands for Writers Guild of America. To be more specific the WGA-w and the WGA-e are on strike. The “e” and “w” stand for East and West.
Why is this important?
It’s not, really. Other than all movies and television in the United States are written by WGA members. If you write for a scripted television show (think sitcom or drama, think actors) than by default you become a member of the WGA. You don’t have a choice. Moreover, if you decide to go into acting you become a member of the SAG, directing makes you a member of the DGA, and etc. There are a lot of acronyms.
All of these acronyms amount to a hill of beans when considering where your entertainment comes from. Basically, Hollywood and all of television are being chained down by the WGA. The reason for this:
The WGA wants control over all writers to include reality TV writers and animation writers.
This is not something that the AMPTP wants to give them. Yeah, sure, it’s about workers and who they don’t report to. Yes, you heard me correctly. This is about writers and who they do not report to.
Basically, what the writer’s (tens of thousands of them) voted for was to get better arrangements when it comes to new media. New Media is being described as advances in DVD technology, internet, and other distribution mediums.
What I believe the majority of writers are not fighting for is bringing under the WGA umbrella reality TV or animation. You see, this is a petty fight. What has happened over the past few years is that the current president of the WGA has been aggressively trying to get these writers under the WGA umbrella. He staged a walkout for some of these writers on one show only to lose membership, rather than to gain it. Those writers were fired and nothing was gained as a result.
Instead of trying to sell these writers on the benefits of joining a union, which, during any strike, seem fewer and fewer, all the WGA has done is prove that production and craft are less important than standing for something that doesn’t matter. When you hold in your hands tens of thousands of lives, even more on production crews, add in the actors: extra’s, featured extras, supporting actors, and lead actors you start to affect a lot of people.
There are more people in Hollywood, or deal with television and movies, than just the WGA. When this organization threatened to strike, and it was more than a threat because they are currently striking, they affected all of Hollywood.
What is not interesting or nice, to me, is to watch the SAG support the WGA. Granted, the SAG wants the WGA to be successful in some areas. I don’t have to stand on a picket line or speak to actors to know that new media is an important and hot topic for most people in Hollywood. This is how people can retire from writing, acting, directing, producing, whatever and continue to live off of the work they did while they acted, produced, wrote, whatever’d. The issue that the SAG and the DGA and other guilds are fighting for, and ultimately being forced to either side with the AMPTP or the WGA about is new media.
No one outside of the WGA cares one wit about reality writers or animation writers. That is greed. And it is specifically greed brought on by the leadership of the WGA-w.
However, consider that the WGA is correct in the assertion that all writers, regardless of medium, belong under the umbrella of the WGA. What does that mean?
The WGA (as a union organization) is in place to guarantee working conditions and minimum standards for writers. What this means is that if you work for a television program you can expect to receive, for one script, approximately $30,000*. You can expect that you will only be asked to work on two (2) scripts per year. And you will expect that any shows based off of your work will be credited to you and you will receive residual payments for that show being rebroadcast.
In essence, what the WGA does is guarantee that people who fall under the WGA umbrella are guaranteed certain rights according to their contract.
What the negotiations are currently trying to do is to increase the writer’s minimums. Why this is important to the rest of Hollywood and why high profile stars are coming out of the woodwork to support this (mostly because it’s a cause, stars like causes, and they can afford not to work) is because the SAG negotiations take place this summer, the DGA negotiations are going to start this month, and other guilds (unions) negotiations with the AMPTP will take place this year.
The first guild (union) to come up with an agreement with the AMPTP will set the standard for all other unions. What the other unions want is for the new media to give them as much of a percentage as possible.
However, what the WGA is doing is trying to leverage the desire for better minimum basics with new media against the desire to bring on these other writers.
In this case, this tactic will backfire on the WGA. Especially as the DGA goes into talks with the AMPTP. The DGA and AMPTP don’t have the same moores (sic) as the WGA. They are not trying to negotiate for other writers. The DGA and AMPTP don’t care about the other writers (note: there is a lot of cross membership between all of these guilds).
To make matters worse, four of the major studios have cancelled contracts with writers for new material. What this means is not only are the shows that are currently on the air (and suffering from lack of production material) not showing new shows, but for the foreseeable future (into the 2008-2009 season) there are no new shows that are going to be produced. By no new shows, this also extends to pilots and other shows that are vying for a spot on one of the networks come next fall.
None of this means a whole lot to most people. It does mean that we don’t have new shows and we will have to suffer in the realm of repeats and (*shudder*) reality television. Eventually, there come a point where the WGA’s requests will hit a tipping point and the members, themselves, will begin to reject what the leadership is doing. Scab writers will start to appear in droves and the WGA leadership will be forced to sign a lesser contract with the AMPTP (because only a handful of studios that, essentially, don’t matter have current contracts with the WGA) and the writer’s who hoped for better will get worse than they would’ve had the WGA leadership come to the tables honestly instead of trying to advance their own causes.
What is interesting to me is that we are watching an organization move backward instead of forward, and if the strike lasts long enough, the federal government will become involved and a federal judge will mediate the strike and may not be favorable toward the WGA. What is really interesting is that some OpEd pieces predict that this could be a tipping point where the WGA actually dies or disapears as an outdated organization that is no longer pertinent in Hollywood.
Viva la revolucion. Viva la WGA.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
*This is a guesstimate at what a writer makes as an example of what you can expect the average working television writer to be making.