Less than a week before negotiations with the major studios, the leaders of the Writers of Guild America are already pressing their case for why writers deserve better pay.
In an interview with The Times, the union’s top negotiators argue that many WGA members are struggling with a steady erosion of revenue even as content has increased in the broadcast era. Despite the uncertainties they face, studios may pay writers more as new distribution models emerge, they say.
To bolster its claims, the guild released a report on Tuesday showing that median pay for writers has fallen over the past decade, a sign of how each side is rethinking their positions ahead of what is expected to be contentious negotiations to replace to three. One year contract expiring May 1st.
“The economic challenges facing writers are deepening and becoming existential,” Chris Keyser, who is co-chair of the bargaining committee, said in a wide-ranging interview with The Times.
The writer of “Party of Five” and “Julia” were joined by Co-Chairman of Dealing David Goodman, former Guild President and writer of “Family Guy”; and the union’s chief negotiator, Ellen Stutzman, who replaced veteran leader David Young, who recently resigned to take medical leave.
A spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to comment.
The interview has been abridged for clarity.
How do you feel about the upcoming negotiations?
Good man: The support of the members is very strong, because we are trying to address the problems that affect our members. From the company side, we can’t really predict what they’re going to do.
What is it about this cycle that has so many people fearing that a strike is coming?
Keyser: The shift to the broadcast model has devalued the work of writers in a way we haven’t seen before and leaves us with an agenda that is critical to the economic survival of writers. So we know that what is happening here is very important. How other people respond to it is other people’s business; We will know in a week.
We live in a world where 50% of writers work at least with an MBA (the minimum level of pay set out in the contract between writers and studios). Twenty-four percent of showrunners work at least. They work at the lowest level covered by the contract, working too few weeks with unreasonable pressure on them to produce, or too many weeks with no increase in wages.
There is no ladder of success in business, there is no brass ring at the bottom. As companies earn billions of dollars and spend more and more on streaming, writers earn less and less. That is unsustainable. It’s unsustainable.
What are your main priorities in the negotiations?
Good man: Compensation is down across all sectors of our membership: feature film writers, comedy/variety writers, television episode writers, from top to bottom. So our priority is to address the compensation of all these people in this new model that the companies have decided is the model that they are going to follow. It is not one or two problems. This is how writers make their living in all sectors of business.
Studios are laying off workers and cutting expenses. Does that make it more difficult for you to achieve your salary increase goals?
Keyser: There is no doubt that they are looking for a better end result. They are looking for benefits wherever they can find them. They’d like to find those profits by reducing the amount of money they pay writers, but at some point, that’s not right. There’s never a good time, right? The studios never say, “Oh, thank God, you came this year, because this year we can afford it.” That never happens.
They continue to spend huge amounts of money on the stuff we write about first and then make: $19 billion that they plan to spend on streaming this year. So they’re spending a lot of money. They’re spending it because they know there are going to be a bunch of winners in the global streaming business that will make companies fabulously rich.
There is a disconnect there, and we must end that disconnect. Writers are just as valuable as they were before the streaming model, and they should be paid that way.
stutzman: We look at the industry over a very long period and see how prosperous and profitable it has been. The content that writers and others in this city create has tremendous value. Companies have monetized it with great success globally and will continue to do so. It is not for writers to pay for the poor decision-making of companies that decide to pursue expensive mergers or take on large amounts of debt. Those are short-term things that will change, and we have to negotiate a contract that will last for decades.
If the salary increases, could it mean less work for the writers?
stutzman: What we want to get out of this negotiation is to ensure that there is a future and a career for writers and that there are enough jobs for the amount of work. That the writers be kept and employed a sufficient amount of time to get the job done rather than cram them into as few weeks as possible, and that they be paid appropriately. It is about protecting this career and the working capacity of the writers.
Good man: I don’t think we can honestly predict how companies will react, but we can certainly put safety measures in place so that the number of jobs doesn’t go down and those jobs pay well.
Keyser: I have been in business for over 30 years. I did shows decades ago where the company spent a lot less, where a studio needed 100 episodes to guarantee their money back, where we all get adequate pay and much smaller budgets. Now, the budgets are much higher, they are spending much more money, the risks are much less. We ask for more money. Is it possible that they respond to us and say: “Okay, we are not going to hire you”? I guess they could; it would be an irrational business decision. But they can do that now. Nobody tells them how many writers to hire, we can’t.
Can an agreement be reached without a strike?
Good man: That really is up to the companies to decide. We put out our agenda, we put out what we need, and we put out the strength of our union, which I think has never been stronger. I’ve been in the trade since 1988, and I don’t think there’s ever been a period where the membership felt as strongly and the companies understood it. Companies will try to get you the cheapest deal possible. They’re going to try to pay us as little as they can. And the question is, how much influence do we have as a union to not do that, to get paid our living wage? It comes out in the negotiation. And again, I’ve been to five of these. And every time it’s a surprise where we end up.
What efforts are you making to align with the other unions negotiating contracts this year?
Good man: We have had conversations with (Directors Guild of America) and (SAG-AFTRA). Its members also face compensation difficulties. Whether we really negotiate together is another matter, and we have not been prepared for that. But it seems that for the first time in a long time, at least there is open communication and some interests aligned. However, the issues we’re talking about are pretty writer-centric. We always hope that in the future these three unions can align and work together on this. And certainly, I feel a support from them that we haven’t had before.
