What’s on the Line In the Writers’ Strike By Harold Meyerson

The problem for the people who write the shows is that, at present, the studios aren’t bound to pay them anything for material that goes out on the Internet, and the studios are pretty much trying to keep it that way.

“Our current bargaining agreement doesn’t give us jurisdiction over content written for new media,” says Tony Segall, general counsel of the Writers Guild of America West. A side letter appended in 2001 to the guild’s contract with the studios exempted the studios from having to bargain with the union over the paychecks of writers turning out material for the Web, which the insufficiently futurist leadership of the guild (since replaced) apparently viewed as a distant prospect.

Last year, however, NBC-Universal asked the writers of “The Office” to create two-to-three-minute “webisodes” of the series for the Internet. Though the webisodes drove up the show’s ratings, the studio paid the writers nothing for their work. The writers, not surprisingly, ceased their webisode writing; the guild sought to negotiate for them with NBC-Universal and got nowhere fast; and the issue of the writers’ right to bargain collectively for Internet work became the crux of the writers’ conflict with the studios.

The day before the strike began, the studios offered the guild jurisdiction over writing on the Internet that is related to existing scripted dramas. Their offer wouldn’t cover the streaming of Letterman’s Top Ten list. It wouldn’t cover any material originally written for Internet delivery, a category that in a few years may encompass all new shows.

Segall acknowledges that devising a contract for new media is conceptually challenging. Since nobody knows how much revenue will initially be produced by entertainment delivered by the Internet, the guild’s position is that the contract should stipulate a percentage of Internet-show revenue, rather than a flat fee, for writers.

The guild’s message is: “If they [the studios] get paid, we must get paid.” …

Nations with more high-tech economies than our own, such as the Scandinavian states, have upgraded technology and increased productivity in ways that have enhanced, rather than diminished, the bargaining power and lives of their workers. In the United States, by contrast, our corporate elites, sometimes using technological innovation as a pretext for their power grabs, have destroyed workers’ bargaining power and kept for themselves almost all the revenue from technologically driven productivity increases. The picketers at Paramount and Disney may look to be a chorus line of wise-asses, but their struggle is a deadly serious test of whether any American workers retain the clout to strike a deal with the unchecked greed that is the modern American corporation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111301833_pf.html

Writers Strike For Fairness — Center for American Progress Action Fund Progress Report

THE WRITERS’ PREDICAMENT: In 2004, The New York Times reported that “not since the advent of the videocassette in the mid-1980s has the movie industry enjoyed such a windfall from a new product,” in reference to DVDs. In contrast, as the WGA notes, “48 percent of writers guild members are unemployed at any time. Residuals are more than just extra cash. They are a life saver, allowing writers in financial strains to keep from losing their house or losing health insurance.” Most WGA members seldom earn beyond five figures each year. “Some of these writers are living check to check,” said James Brooks, the writer, director, and producer of The Simpsons. Actors, directors, and crew members also rely on residuals to “pay the bills and fund their health and pension programs.” The writers are “one of the best examples out there of the idea that working people can advance their interests through unions even outside of traditional ‘hard hat’ or public sector industries,” observed The Atlantic’s Matthew Yglesias. …

NEW MEDIA AT CENTER STAGE: With services like iTunes, studios can deliver products “more efficiently than ever.” Despite the cost savings, studios want to pay writers older DVD residuals (four cents per dollar) for online content. Furthermore, traditional media now air shows online, to be watched for free by viewers on the Internet, cell phones, and other new media outlets. While corporations profit from the ad revenue, writers “do not get paid when TV shows are streamed for free” online. Corporations allege the “union’s efforts as prohibiting them ‘from experimenting with programming and business models in New Media.'” The WGA strike has generated a solidarity between the blogosphere and writers. HuffingtonPost has a full page devoted to the strike. WGA leaders have formed their own blog to debunk traditional media spin and inform the public. Several other writers have been writing online, using Facebook, and posting YouTube videos. Yesterday, “[m]ore than 20 bloggers who write about the industry went ‘dark’ in support of the Writers Guild and its demands to be compensated for streaming TV broadcasts and other digital media.”

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/11/pr20071114