[ Writer Gary Phillips traces the history of the Writers Guild,
the militancy of Hollywood unions, beginning with the writers, the
difference between the writers and actors, and why the actors remain
on strike.]
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TO LIVE AND STRIKE IN HOLLYWOOD  
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Gary Phillips
October 17, 2023
Stansbury Forum
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_ Writer Gary Phillips traces the history of the Writers Guild, the
militancy of Hollywood unions, beginning with the writers, the
difference between the writers and actors, and why the actors remain
on strike. _

WGA Strike May 4 2023. Credit: ufcw770, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia
Commons,

 

In the seminal book _The Hollywood Writers’ Wars_ by Nancy Lynn
Schwartz, completed by her mother Sheila Schwartz upon her
daughter’s untimely death, the internal and external battles of
Writers Guild of America, WGA, formed in 1933, were chronicled.  The
Schwartz’s note of this then bourgeois gig:

_“IT WAS A GREAT TIME TO BE PROSPEROUS, YOUNG, AND PROGRESSIVE IN
THE MOVIE KINGDOM. YOU COULD LIVE BETTER THAN NINE-TENTHS OF THE
NATION YET REMAIN, THROUGH POLITICAL ACTIVITY, INTIMATELY CONNECTED TO
THE PULSE OF HUMANITY.”_

That connection would prove to not just be blue-collar lives put to
paper and screen by a bunch of lefties and their hardcore red buddies.
By the 1940s, writers were seeking to better their working conditions.
Not surprisingly as in other labor struggles, they were met with
resistance from the bosses. And it wasn’t just writers who found
themselves on the front lines. 

On October 5, 1945, Bloody Friday, striking set decorators attempting
to stop scabs from entering the Warner’s lot were assaulted by
police and private security wielding billy clubs, fire houses gushing
pressurized water and tear gas. This strike and several other militant
ones led to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, with Congress overriding a
veto by President Harry Truman. Among its provisions, the Act outlawed
so-called wildcat strikes.

The latest strike by the WGA was no wildcat action against the
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the AMPTP.
Everyone from the Silicon Valley computer bros turned studio execs,
the legacy bosses a la Disney/ABC/Fox and the related personnel like
those who supply craft services saw it coming. For the most part the
night sticks didn’t come out, though there were several incidents of
cars entering the studio lots shaving the distance between it and a
picketer. And if a scribe was scabbing, they could do so by zoom and
their computer in privacy. 

This strike was important in its long-term ramifications too. For the
first time since 1960 when both unions walked out, the Screen Actors
Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, SAG-AFTRA,
went on strike. This occurred roughly a month and a half after the
writers when the actors’ Minimum Basic Agreement, MBA, came due. 

For the WGA there were several points of contention. The two main ones
were the nature of how residuals were being calculated in the age of
streaming, and the onrush of AI as writer. A residual is a percentage
of your initial fee as the script writer when the show you wrote or
co-wrote is rerun domestically or internationally. This is how it’s
still figured for network shows. Heretofore the formula streamers used
was a percentage of the earned licensing fee paid to the actors and
writers. But only they knew the numbers of subscribers who’d decided
to view your program – and therefore didn’t pay out on how many
sets of eyes were watching.  

During the strike, it was clear those halcyon days written about by
the Schwartzes’ were long gone. Several articles penned by
established Hollywood writers, those who had sold a show, ran a
writers’ room, even wrote movies, still had to have side hustles,
and sometimes go on welfare. In my neighborhood there’s the World
Harvest Food Bank. It’s a market where for forty dollars patrons can
fill up their basket with fresh produce. If you can’t pay, you can
still get food as long as you did a volunteer stint. Many a striker
still shops there.

Michael Schulman’s piece in _The_ _New Yorker_, ““Orange Is
the New Black” Signaled the Rot Inside the Streaming Economy” is
an example of how writers and actors were screwed by the streamers.
The article told of the plight of various actors in the Netflix show
like Kimiko Glenn and others who were recognized in the streets from
their reoccurring roles. But Glenn received foreign residuals totaling
less than thirty dollars. Imagine how pitiful the amounts earned by
actors in far less hit shows like “Orange” got for streaming
residuals. Even the showrunners of the show, not paid starvation wages
to begin with, were stunned to find out some 105 million viewers had
watched at least one episode of the show. They too did not receive
residuals commensurate with those numbers. The MBA now calls for
success-based bonuses.

As to AI, there are several; new guardrails in place such as the
writer can use AI when performing writing services if the company
consents, but the company can’t require the writer to use the likes
of ChatGPT. But as many have observed, the digital genie is out of the
virtual bottle. For certain there are already scripts and manuscripts
being produced by an AI program with the writer giving the work a
human rewrite. My short story “THE STORY CONFERENCE”
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June on this site doesn’t seem too far off to me. Various outfits
such as Meta continue to use AI to scrape, as the term goes,
writers’ works — including several of my books, training the AI to
replace the flesh and blood writer.

 

Though the Writers Guild has reached a tentative deal with the
studios, the Screen Actors Guild is still on strike and continues to
walk the picket line in front of Netflix’s New York offices.
 (Credit: Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City, CC BY 2.0  //
 Stansbury Forum)
More immediately, the actors remain on strike. It seemed a slam dunk
given the WGA’s progress, that as the actors’ talks began with the
AMPTP an agreement was within reach. After five days the producers
walked away from the bargaining table. They claimed SAG-AFTRA sought a
one-dollar levy per year per subscriber to a streaming service. “A
bridge too far,” co-CEO of Netflix Ted Sarandos stated. President of
SAG-AFTRA Fran Dreschler stated the figure was exaggerated by some
sixty percent.

The reality is actors have several distinct issues from the writers
they need to have addressed. Be it the notion of self-taping for an
audition and the use of AI to capture voice, face, and form. To see
more of what SAG-AFTRA is demanding, check out their STRIKE WEBSITE
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While I’ve admittedly lessened my presence on the strike line in
support of my brother and sister actors, I still get out to
picket.  And when I’m driving there, might be as I’ve seen more
than once in the last few days, a driverless car on the roadway. What
does it say about the growing presence of AI that these autonomous
vehicles are no longer an unusual presence among us?

…

Follow the link for Gary Phillips’ new book:
THE UNVARNISHED GARY PHILLIPS: A MONDO PULP COLLECTION
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_[GARY PHILLIPS is a member of the WGA and writes prose as well. His
latest is The Unvarnished Gary Phillips: A Mondo Pulp Collection
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* WGA
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* Writers
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* Films
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* movies
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* television
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* Hollywood
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* Hollywood studios
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* WGA Writers Strike
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* SAG-AFTRA
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* Hollywood Strikes
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* actors
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* Screen Actors guild
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* Labor Unions
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* residuals
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* streaming
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* royalties
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* AI
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* artificial intelligence
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* Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
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* AMPTP
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