Support the WGA

For readers who may be unaware, the Writers Guild of America is officially on strike as of May 2^nd. The WGA failed to come to an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on a new contract. The central issue in the dispute is increasing pay for writers, specifically streaming residuals.

The streaming model that has become prevalent is shows structured as 10 episode seasons rather than 22 episode seasons like those of traditional network TV. So there are obviously fewer episodes for writers to work on and decreased residuals resulting from these shortened seasons. This fundamentally impacts the viability of writing professionally. Writing is infamously NOT where the money is in Hollywood and reductions in writing income pushes it from a full-fledged career into side-hustle territory.

As much as I am a television enthusiast, I am even more so a firm advocate for labor. Collective bargaining is a hard won avenue to improving the rights and lives of everyday workers in all areas of the economy. Writers deserve to fairly share in the revenue that their work makes possible in an industry where projects are measured in 8, 9, or 10 digits. Writing is the foundational aspect of TV and film and the most beloved characters and stories in our culture wouldn’t be possible without the talent, sweat, and dreams of writers. Filmmaking is a team sport and writers, as a critical member of that team, deserve compensation commensurate to their contributions.

This is the first strike since the WGA strike in 2007-2008 which lasted 100 days. A big win from the last strike was mandating that streaming platforms had to hire WGA member writers for productions over a specific budget threshold. With the explosion of streaming media in the past 10 years, this outcome from early 2008 kept union writers in the room on the forefront of new media.

Studios are going to explore every avenue to reduce costs and increase net income on projects. They are no different than any other corporation. Profit seeking behavior is the natural tendency for entities whose sole purpose is to maximize the economic value for their investors and shareholders. Labor is expensive. So labor is going to be a target for cost reduction initiatives. Writers deserve more than just to be treated as an expense to be reduced. In the age of AI and tools like ChatGPT, writing professionally in any capacity is at risk. The temptation to use text generative AI for a fraction of the cost of using a human writer is high. But I can’t imagine a media landscape of exclusively AI generated content. AI as it currently exists is amazing at imitating human language. But it is not able to organically create something new. It will never be a unique artistic expression or be able to capture the emotion of shared human experience.

For those of us outside of LA and the picket lines, it feels as if there is frustratingly little to do to help. But I’d encourage you, reader, to make your support known on social media. Let the data and metrics show studios that the public support is with writers. This blog is new and only has a very small reach but I hope it can be a single drop in an ocean of support. If you’re aware of more ways to show support, please leave a comment or send me an email. I hope both sides are able to come to an agreement that enables writers to continue on as full-time professionals. But until an agreement is made, I fully support the WGA and I encourage you to support this cause as well.