I’m not a member of the writer’s guild but considering the fact that the reporting on the strike has been rather one-sided and skewed, I think John Robin Baitz puts things in perspective over at the Huffington Post:
The act of attempting to break the union, which seems to have been the zero-sum game played thus far by the studios’ representatives, has wide-ranging implications for how you and I relate to corporate gigantism. Let me give you an example: Most of the mass media reporting of the strike has been largely unsympathetic to the WGA. That’s because the owners of those news sources happen to be mainly the same companies the writers are fighting with.
Newspapers and local stations also take in vast sums from movie and television ads, so there is a quiet and insistent hesitancy when it comes to being critical of the hand that feeds them. The studios have framed the debate, gotten ahead of it, and now we have many people commenting on HuffPo about the spoiled and over-paid mediocrities who write TV and movies. The fact that the future livelihood of thousands of families is at stake does not really come into the reporting. The actual income of the majority of writers in the business does not come into the reporting.
For instance, in any given year, over half the members of the WGA are unemployed. They rely on residuals to pay mortgages and tuitions. To maintain middle-class lives. But the major media, married to, or owned by the conglomerates that also own the studios, has successfully gotten ahead of the story, and 1-2-3, turned what would should be a dialogue about how we earn our wages into something much less important. The studios have been able to deflect the public from examining what it is to be an individual who is not fairly compensated for the work they do, while the corporation that produced it reaps endless streams of profit from said work.
Howard Rodman has a good rundown about what the writers are really asking for here. And the Huffington Post is going to be covering the ongoing story in a Writer’s Strike Opinion page.
(photo by aboutmattlaw)
Related posts:
- Roll Cameras! Screen Actors Guild Ratifies Contract
- AP Defines “Unbiased Source of News”: Don’t Criticize the Clients
- Glenn Greenwald On His MSNBC Source For the GE-Olbermann Story
- Anti-Choice Men: The Go-To Source for Abortion Opinion
- Kagen, Kissell Among Those Vowing to Vote Against Any Health Care Bill: Source
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
zed?
do I have the zed?
Dos
Sounds a lot like they do piece work.
When Freewaybloggers go bad…
http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..e-now.html
Some Adult Language, Content.
Ah Bob, ya beat me to it. I haven’t hit the zed in probably a year. You are too quick for me. It’s probably because I read the post first
Hiya Jane!
I wasn’t done downstairs, but I guess I’ll go tell’em.
Thanks, Jane; Let’s support the union!
Bob in HI
I’m just thoroughly pissed at how the programs that help spread news that the MSM either skews or fails to cover, are the first to go, and depending on how long the strike lasts, who knows if they’ll be brought back.
Tin foil on head.
Jane:
That .jpg file (photo) didn’t load on the page. At least on my monitor.
I’m not seeing an image at the top of the post; just an address for a .jpg.
Biodun, we’ve got to stop meeting like this. People will talk.
Yep. MSM has been harping that these Writers Guild writer-producers make an average of $200,000 a year and have extremely generous health coverage.
Peterr:
LOL!
According to HuffPo, Jon Stewart is paying his writers out of his own pocket for two weeks to keep his show going and to support his writers.
What are the sticking points?
Thank you!
Somebody is making big money on DVD and electronic distribution of tv shows and movies. Why aren’t the writers who create the scripts getting a fair share of that money?
To me the question is that simple. It’s not like they’re trying to make you and I pay more for our entertainment, they just want a fairer share of what’s already being made.
New media results in new profits for the studios, why shouldn’t they have to share with the folks who actually create the content?
How can we support this strike? Do we boycott new television shows and movies?
Is tuning in to Chuck tonight like crossing a picket line?
Toby Wollin @ 15
good for him
Saturday Night Live had a priceless Weekend Update sketch regarding this strike…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-FZK5K8J-s
Toby Wollin @ 15
One more reason to respect Mr. Stewart. Kudos to him!
SufiLizard @ 17
Perhaps putting pressure on the sponsors???
looseheadprop @ 6
Good for you, LHP! If I could transfer my zed to you, I would. (looks down, shuffles feet, looks embarrassed) I didn’t read first.
Bob in HI
SufiLizard @ 17
I really hope not. That’s why I turn on the TV on Monday nights.
Here’s the link for the Jon Stewart story.
http://www.portfolio.com/views…..ers-afloat
There also seems to be some question as to whether Stewart is paying out of his own pocket or through his production company. AND, there seems to be some disagreement over whether just the writers are being paid, or whether ALL to show employees are going to be paid.
I’m sure there will be more on this…
scarlet p. @ 5
I wuz robbed! Actually, what I usually say is
SufiLizard @ 20
I’m not so sure about that. Isn’t that strikebreaking by making a deal independent of the union? If the writers are union members, aren’t they dishonoring their own union’s strike? One for all and all for one, and all that.
I’m unsure we should applaud side deals that undermine the strikers as a whole.
jesus christ – can we kill the “reality” shows, the “pimp my ride”, and “I wanna marry a real rich m-fucker on-account-a-I got- really swell boob-job”, and let the writers “write:?
Jerry Seinfeld from Cannes: “Doesn’t anybody *write* anything anymore”?
Fer chrissakes, they’re *writers* – let ‘em write,
And yeah, I know it’s about wages, I’m just funny that way….
WRITE, fer chrissakes… !!
Over lunch, I caught MSNBC doing a fast piece on this. They showed Jay Leno chatting with reporters while standing in the midst of a group of writers union protesters with their picket signs. Jay was saying lots of things like (paraphrasing here) “it’s a shame it has come to this” and “I hope this can be settled quickly without lots of personal attacks.”
One reporter, apparently hoping for more red meat, asked Jay something like “well, who are *you* supporting?” Leno looked around at the signs, then back at the reporter with a look of indignation. “You don’t see me bringing doughnuts to the producers, do you?”
And yes, re: those residuals (as distinct from residues*):
*residues, which Chimpy probably knows quite a bit of…
Worried about the middle class lifestyle @ $200,000 a year? That’s a huge annual income in the midwest. This last union negotiation in the auto industry…now that is where you worry about a huge piece of the middle class going bye-bye…the auto industry’s new union contracts and their new 2-tier wage system that will pay new employees about $14 an hour(and the 150,000 who will be without their auto job by 2009).
jayt @ 27
Football isn’t scripted, is it?
Cujo359 @ 31
No, but rasslin’ is.
These writers don’t live in the Midwest, they by and large live in LA and NYC, where $200,000 does not mean one is particularly wealthy. Additionally this “average” is skewed, with the majority earning much less than $200,000, and a few very lucky writers earning much more.
Dee @ 30
While I sympathize with the writers, this certainly isn’t in the same ballpark as the GM strike, or miners’ strikes, or the other things that affect tens or even hundreds of thousands of workers.
And these corporate studios need to get with the program: The Internet has shaken up the power structure in most industries, especially in the media, music, movies, vidoes, politics, in short, just about everything under the sun.
Regarding the Daily Show item, perez hilton [I know, I know — I was sent there via another site] is reporting a denial that this is in fact the case. Whatever the facts, I love Jon Stewart and will miss that show most of all during the strike.
But solidarity! I hope the writers get what they want and deserve!
Dee @ 30
$200,000 is half to a third of the cost of a 50-year-old house in Northridge, CA. The low end is a 3-bedroom one-bath house with a galley kitchen; the high end is the one next door with a pool and a real master bedroom (after remodelling).
It’s a lot of money in some places, but not others. The writers don’t get special discounts on housing.
—
In other news: the jury is back on Wilkes: guilty x 13.
Albatross @ 33
Any info as to what the median (mid-point) per annum is?
OT
How many time have I held you in contempt?
Indict Freddy the Fielding for obstruction.
He gives lawyers a very, very bad name.
TIME is NOT of the essence…
except in Bush v Gore
peterr @ 28
Leno with doughnuts
I’ve always been of the view that entertainment media independent content providers (inclding writers) should move to a guild type structure.. in other words, form a union independent of the employers and agree on rates/work terms collectively, as provider instead of employee… effectively a professional association with collective bargaining strength. This would make them media-independent (movies, TV, internet, whatever). As Biodun points out, a lot of the older types of content providers, like the big studios, may one day go the way of the dinos, and the writers’ unions don’t want to be caught in a GM/UAW-style death spiral.
Link?
I don’t see it on any headlines yet.
dakine01 @ 38
Jane’s Howard Rodman link answers this and many other questions.
So Jane, is this a bad time to pitch my movie concept?
It’s a dual track narrative, with Emerson, Thoreau, Abolitionists and Transcendentalism as one track, with Slavery, freed Slave communities, and living with the Fugitive Slave Act as the other track. The narrative consists of scenes from each world, with cuts prompted by parallel images and events.
The inspiration is a brief journal entry by Emerson, that captures the wisdom of a young former slave that had been freed by his mother-in-law.
I sent it to Robert Redford many years ago, but
The Bridges of Madison CountyThe Horse Whisperer was in development, and he wasn’t interest at the time. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and trying to figure out the best approach to pitching the concept.Busted = I picked it up at Talking Points; they linked here, at signonsandiego.com
Cujo359 @ 31
Obviously not – my Colts lost yesterday….
TeddySanFran @ 26
Thanks for that. I hadn’t really looked at it from that point of view, but you may be right. Though I’m still a fan of Mr. Stewart, but perhaps he’s wrong on this.
Bustednuckles @ 42
And of course, Marcy’s gone “bear hunting”
Dee @ 30
So do the auto industry contracts include no job security and balancing years spent making a salary with years spent out of work and living off residuals?
I didn’t think so. Don’t compare apples to oranges. There’s always a supposed reason why somebody doesn’t deserve what they’re getting. Writers aren’t taking money out of the hands of auto workers, and arguing that their union doesn’t deserve to be supported isn’t going to help union workers in the midwest.
Thanks PJ.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/
Wilkes
Cujo359 @ 34
Strong unions — of all stripes — are good for all of us. Let’s not pull down some unions by saying some are better than others. The more commonplace and accepted all unions are, the better off we’ll be.
The kind of fuckery the writers are protesting is at its root the same sort of fuckery we rail against every day: mega profits accomplished by accruing everything at the top and shafting everyone else down to the bottom. The principle is absolutely the same…
It’s be a damn shame if the Teamsters Union — in a display of solidarity with their union sisters and brothers — by demonstrating to the networks and studios some of those old school tactics that got the job done way back when.
TeddySanFran @ 43
Thanks Teddy. I hadn’t had a chance to check all the links. But it reinforces how usspect the use of the “average” is in a lot of these types of deals.
I’m a big baseball fan and cringe when I see the stories on “the average baseball player makes $2.7M” (not the true figure but close I’m sure) when the median is something along $850-$900k. Obivously much more than most folks make but no where near the amount implied. And $5K as a median is just almost incomprehensible
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post. And all firedoglakers please hit all the blogs you can to help the writers out.
The freepi are bombing blogs attached to stories, and sending out trolls to sites everywhere, in an obvious campaing to turn public opinion aganst writers. On an MSNBC industry blog writers were called “leftist who have been shoving thier adgenda down our throats for years”
Industry has unleashed the conserative machine against writers in the blogosphere. They need our help – please surf wide and comment often.
The writer’s fight is our fight.
Whoever is responsible for the reality show juggernaut the past several years certainly had in mind the writing out of writers of tv shows.
Even the best American tv show or movie made these days doesn’t cut it. Really bad cinema all around.
Cujo359 @ 34
I disagree. I’m sitting in Indiana, so I’m no expert on the world of television and movie writers, but I suspect there are quite a few of them and the work they do is every bit as genuine as factory workers.
Sure you may not like a lot of their work, but I don’t particularly care for Hummers, but I acknowledge the right of the workers who make them to earn a living wage.
And I imagine the writers’ jobs are much less structured and secure as a factory job. Writers depend on the residuals since show business is such a fickle industry.
And as I stated earlier. Studios make real money on the product of the writers’ labor. Why aren’t the writers entitled to their fair share of that money?
It’s not like if the union loses this strike the price of movie tickets is going to go down. The studio execs will just be that much richer.
PEOPLE! The Writer’s Strike is not a zero-sum-game with the auto industry fer Chrissake! Put on your skeptical shades, folks! If the MSM says that ‘the average writer makes $200,000 year,’ who do you think is promoting that number? That’s right – Big Business seeking to undermine the writers!
There’s nothing they like better than turning us po’ folk against each other. Makes it easier on them.
If you’re a union supporter, support the union – work off your wounded sense of fairness later!
From the article:
Perhaps we can depend on my party, the Democratic Party, and the DLC and it’s Leadership Team to come to the aid of labor unions. Writing? Maybe we can outsource it.
On Bill Maher’s show last Friday, he made a joke about the obscene compensation CEOs get and the need to bring back the guillotine.
It resonated.
We should all dearly desire success to the writers and all unions. The money’s got to be brought back into the commons, or one way or another heads will roll.
That $200k “average” is like saying you, me, and Bill Gates are worth an “average” of $10 billion each.
Two things.
First the idea that the writers “make too much money” compared to someone else somewhere in the U.S. and should therefore shut up and take it is exactly how the majority of American workers got to be so powerless.
Second, as a consumer of the writers product how can I help them?
I’m not a “union guy” – in fact I’m management who’s unemployed at the end of this week – but I certainly want to support the writers in this strike.
I was serious when I asked earlier if watching TV is like crossing a picket line.
I was happy to see I wasn’t the only one who appreciates “Chuck” but I’ll go without if it will do any good.
Of course just reading a book tonight instead of turning on the boob tube will go completely unnoticed, so should I write to my local network affiliates telling them about my boycott?
Is there some other action we can take — besides blogging about it?
Who is going to write Faux News during the strike?
The fact of the matter is “The Third Way” and NAFTA are anti-union and anti-labor.
jayt @ 46
Well, I might be willing to debate this, since the Lions won!
Time to go out and educate the media on the difference between ‘average’ and ‘median’.
Free example:
If Bill Gates, George Soros, or Warren Buffett showed up here, the average income of the posters would go up a lot … but the median income wouldn’t change much at all, because median isn’t (total income) divided by (number of posters), it’s the middle item in (list of posters’ income, sorted by amount). (parentheses used to delimit the items)
PEOPLE! The Writer’s Strike is not a zero-sum-game with the auto industry fer Chrissake!
Except for constructors of strawmen, no one is suggesting it is.
Dee @ 66
PLEASE! I’m trying not to think about that Patriots game. Although I noticed Tony Dungy shook Bilachek’s hand after the game unlike Mr. Sore-Loser-Patriots-Coach when the Colts beat them last year.
I’m getting the “404″ on the next thread.
Redshift @ 49
I must stop my emotional posting. My meaning is simply that if we are going to express concerns about the middle class because of the writer’s strike, we should include the UAW and the miners, etc. Not just the writers. I am aware that they live on the coasts and with many friends and family living on the coasts I am well aware of housing costs. I fully support the writers and all unionized workers (although the UAW has enough warts to fill a field full of toads) but the loss of the middle class spreads across the country and I took a bit of umbrage at the writers being highlighted.
Toby Wollin @ 70
Same here. IN EPU-land as opposed to BEING EPU’d, eh? :-)
Sure residuals are at stake so the fight will be bitter. Nothing better than pushing paper and making money for the next 20 years – why give any to the people who write the papers.
Dee @ 71
Understood. Nothing specifically wrong with that — but who is striking right now?
as a member of one of the guilds affected, please, I am asking you to support your unions. when they are gone, so will all free speech be gone. most have gone, as many of you know. millions work under conditions that suck eggs. many of you remember all too well.
perhaps one day we can get all your unions back
I think the writers are being highlighted because their strike is happening right now.
We’ve had lots of posts here about workers’ rights and strikes in all kinds of areas. FDL is a great supporter of Labor.
peanutbutter @ 72
I think the mods pulled it back, to let this thread live on.
Writers are workers too. As for the so-called median $200,000: Well, Aaron Sorkin makes more than that. But my friend Shoshana makes $10,000 average. And she’s a damned good writer. And she lives in Westwood in UCLA-student land. And she lives like a student.
-ck- @ 77
Somebody pushed the LAUNCH button early, I think. It appeared unfinished, as it ended in mid-sentence. I’m sure it will reappear later, in more perfect form.
TeddySanFran @ 26
It’s not strikebreaking — these guys are still on strike. Stewart’s going to be paying their lost wages for the next two weeks.
Labor hasn’t done well in the Bush Administration. They didn’t do great under the previous admistration either.
Perhaps a good deal of the issue can be figured out in terms of copyright law. I don’t think Sonny Bono messed up this part too badly, or maybe he did. Guess it depends on how lawyers can twist the phrases to serve the corportations. Seems like a good enough reason to stay on strike until this crop of youngesters learn what the word “artist” is actually about. Without the artist, the money machine comes to a screaching halt!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 81
Nor the one before that. In fact, it seems to me the first “great” union busting started un Reagan and the airline tower workers strike.
-ck- @ 61
DING DING DING!
Remember, Hollywood is very much feast-or-famine. And the big studio heads like it that way.
Phoenix Woman @ 80
His publicist says Stewart nor his production company will be paying staff (same as your last link above)
peanutbutter @ 83
Yep.
Ronnie “WormFood” Reagan.
We need a new political party or two. When is the last time the presidential candidates of either party had a real job?
Perino: Attempting to make the WH obey the rule of law is “futile”…
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._1105.html
peanutbutter @ 83
That was PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization). And if memory serves me, they were one of the few unions to endorse Ronnie Ray-guns in ‘80.
Phoenix Woman @ 84
The median average mentioned in the Rodman article is a much more accurate measure of how most folks in that industry are doing.
Here’s more confirmation that Stewart and his production company are denying the report:
http://www.portfolio.com/views…..ers-afloat
peanutbutter @ 83
Corrected. Gah.
OKK @ 87
Well, if the GOoPers turn into the smallish regional party that they seeming to be aiming for, the Dems can split the other 75 percent into left-to-center and center-to-right and probably produce two viable parties. I know which half I intend to be in; I think I know which half Hillary and the DLC/DCCCDSCC will be in, and I bet you’re thinking like I am.
We talk about this group and that group having political power. The real sleeping giant is labor. How to harness that dormant power for the common good, is the question.
The real battle is between labor and shareholders.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 95
the real battle has been coopted by folks who need their corprate jobs
Oklahoma kiddo @ 95
I disagree. It seems like the shareholders are getting screwed by management almost as badly as the workers. It’s the shareholders who pay the price of the obscene compensation and it is their holdings that get diluted by the issuance of the stock options at absurdly low prices to exercise.
Phoenix Woman @ 80
I apologize for not knowing where I saw/heard it (either in today’s Chicago Tribune OR on NPR — I’ve been home from work today). But supposedly Jon Stewart is going to pay lost wages for two weeks for both TDS and Colbert Report striking writers.
Edit: sorry, hadn’t seen the denial. Oh nevermind…
sorry OT, but this is probably is going to ‘miss’ MSM…
UN releases report into extent of damage, complications of 2006 Jiyyeh oil spill
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ar…..e_id=86517
Fresh thread upstairs!
Many of today’s workers are like the Okies picking fruit in the California fields in a Steinbeck novel. For them, whether it’s sick kids with no medical coverage, having a low pay job with no benefits, facing forclosure, toiling in a “right to work” state, or a heap of other things, everyday for these folks, is grapes of wrath.
toobz broke??
dakine01 @ 97
When workers also own shares in the company that has worked quite well…
dakine01 @ 97
Ah, but the shareholders can do something about the executive compensation, if they so choose.
Toby Wollin @ 15
Good for him! And now that internet video has really taken off — isn’t it about time for the writers to get residuals from that (potential) income too?
Based on the fiction the mainstream broadcast media spews daily, their copy writers should be forced to strike.
I expected a low key day of picketing but arrived at Sunset Gower studios to find a driver had already driven over a picketer’s foot on the way onto the lot.
peanutbutter @ 52
Very well put, Unions are basically the only option to decent treatment decent wages and good working conditions. Without them you have exactly what we have now in America, as you say.
Just a footnote to the copyright issue: Copyright has nothing to do with it. Get a WGA member to explain in detail what it means to write FADE OUT and walk away from it forever.
The sixth-grade drama club at West Nowhere Middle School cannot change one word of Hapgood (for example) without Tom Stoppard’s permission, but as best I can tell, just about anyone at all can change just about anything at all in a screenplay — names, lines, business, whole scenes, whole acts, the entire story — fish, chips, the lot.
It’s a different business, and the only thing the writers typically get out of it is: paid.
Those that get paid.
(Median WGA income: $5,000. Median Los Angeles home price? God only knows, half a million? $700K?)
No, I’m not a WGA member. Yes, I knew some.