On May 2, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced the start of a strike. It was also the first strike by Hollywood writers in 15 years after the 2007-2008 strike. The WGA negotiated six weeks with the Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP) on behalf of 11,500 screenwriters, and WGA proposed to pay writers $429 million a year, while the AMPTP proposal was only $86 million a year. The WGA initiated a vote and passed the strike decision with a 97.85% approval rate, which officially took effect at 0:01 local time on May 2.
*The Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP) is a California-based trade association representing more than 350 U.S. television and film production companies. Member companies include major movie studios (including Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros.), major broadcast networks (including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC), streaming platforms (including Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon), and other independent film and television production companies.
Protests took place near film and television companies and event venues in New York and Los Angeles. The protests of the writers' union naturally have no shortage of interesting slogans, "Reach a fair contract, otherwise we will spoil "The War of Succession"", "We are not in "Life Cutter"", "The CEO has a yacht, we have a mortgage", "Now ink is also expensive", "Replace the CEO with AI", and so on. To stay tuned for strikes, you can also search for the #writersstrike #WGAstrong hashtag on Twitter.
"Hollywood is an industry that runs on stories, and without storytellers, it's nothing." Rafael Agustin, the writer of "The Virgin Romance," lashed out at AMPTP, "I'm angry because the WGA is undoubtedly going to win, but the AMPTP insists on shutting down the entire industry instead of properly compensating them for the billions of dollars in labor they've earned." Abdi Nazemian, a union member who worked on Call Me By Your Name, said, "It's not just about screenwriting, it's about how we value human labor; It's about the growing gap between rich and poor, which is growing horribly; It's about upholding the power of unions so that we can revitalize the middle class; It's about resisting corporate greed, which today affects everyone, everywhere. ”
According to the WGA, the main controversy is the impact of the explosion of streaming, including the erosion of screenwriters' salaries and job security. The association says the popularity of streaming has increased the budget for series, but writers are earning less and less. Streaming platforms are now heavily adopting mini-rooms to work with screenwriters. Compared to the regular screenwriting room, the mini-screenwriting room has a smaller number of screenwriters, they are also paid less, and most of them only cooperate before the production of the series, and may not be hired during the production of the series, which forces many screenwriters to take on multiple episodes at the same time. Coupled with the fact that streaming episodes are generally shorter than TV series, they do not earn half as much as TV series writers. According to statistics, since 2018, screenwriters' inflation-adjusted compensation has fallen by 14%.
The minimum wage for WGA members varies depending on the popularity of the screenwriter and the duration of the contract, but according to Variety, the minimum wage for a screenwriter is $4546 per week. Over the past 10 years, the number of WGA screenwriters receiving minimum wage has increased from 1/3 to half. At the same time, screenwriters of variety shows on streaming platforms do not have minimum wage protection, which also means that this part of the screenwriters will be paid less.
For their part, AMPTP wants to keep the number of screenwriters per studio as small as possible, and can "generously" increase compensation for screenwriters, and rectify the salary distribution problem on streaming platforms. From the perspective of AMPPP, the pressure on major Hollywood companies has increased in recent years. Just a month ago, Disney began its first round of major layoffs, which are expected to cut 7,000 jobs, a key part of Disney's announced $5.5 billion cost-cutting plan.
Netflix, the biggest driver of the streaming wave, is also currently in decline, according to the first quarter of 2023 financial report, Netflix's net profit was $1.305 billion, down 18% year-on-year. This decline began with the "stall" in the first quarter of 2022, when Netflix's dependent paying subscribers went from an expected 273 new subscribers to a loss of 200,000, and Netflix's stock price fell to one-third of the previous year at the end of 2022.
According to WGA's strike rules, screenwriters are not allowed to write or adapt anything, be prohibited from attending meetings, negotiate with companies, market new projects, sign agreements, or even participate in marketing activities for existing projects during the strike. In contrast, they can accept payment for any work that has already been completed. In the case of screenwriter-producer, screenwriter-actor and screenwriter-director, during the strike, they are allowed to work on the non-screenwriting part, but they are prohibited from doing any screenwriting work, no matter how trivial, even if it is just to modify the dialogue.
According to the Associated Press, since 1960, screenwriters strikes have exceeded any group in Hollywood, with a total of 6 strikes. The first strike took place in 1960 and lasted almost five months. Strikes followed in 1973, 1981 and 1985. The longest shutdown, which lasted 153 days, occurred in 1988.
For the impact of this strike, we can refer to the last strike in 2007-2008. During the 100-day strike action, several television programs and film productions were suspended, and some projects were even canceled. Many companies lose millions or even billions of dollars in revenue because they don't produce movies and TV shows.
The biggest impact by the screenwriters' strike this time is undoubtedly a variety show, and many national late-night shows have announced the suspension of production. These include CBS's "The Stephen Corbeer Late Show," ABC's "Jimmy Cammore Live Show," NBC's "The Tonight Show," "The Late Night Show," "Saturday Night Live," and Comedy Central's "Daily Show."
The impact of strikes on movies and series is lagging behind compared to late-night shows. Alex Weprin, media and business writer for The Hollywood Reporter, said, "When it comes to sitcoms or comedy, it's actually a long time before the general audience can see the difference." "There are a lot of already filmed episodes that have been stored for later use, and there are also scripts that have been written for some of these shows." The Associated Press notes that Netflix and Amazon Prime Video's lists won't look different next week, but they could change in a few months. If the strike continues into the summer, the slate of autumn episodes and movies could be disrupted.
With strikes long anticipated, many studios have accelerated their projects so that enough content is available in the short term. Netflix said they may turn more to overseas series to fill some gaps during the strike.