Writers Strike

By Zesong Yu
October 25, 2023

Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), a labor union which represents nearly 11,500 writers of film and television, were officially on strike as of 12:01 AM, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. This was the first writers strike in 15 years, coming after 6 weeks of protracted negotiations with the alliance of motion picture and television producers—more specifically the AMPTP, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Some of the many queries people had over the strike are: “Why are the writer and actor strikes going on for so long?”, “Why don’t these companies just come back to the table and make a deal already?” The answer is so much more simple and petty: rich people. They’re so busy fighting amongst themselves, these companies are in total disarray.

Some context: all the streamers and studios negotiate as part of one organization called the AMPTP. The AMPTP includes Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros, and etc. But these companies are competitors. They do not get along. Representatives have talked to multiple CEOs from multiple companies who have said they have no problem with any of the writers’ demands, and they can afford all of them. Yet there’s a couple hardline companies who refuse to make a deal and are holding everyone else out on strike, destroying the business in the process. Warner Brothers told the federal government that they are losing $400 million because of the strikes, but it would only cost them $45 million to accept their demands and end the strike. But writers and actors? They don’t have that problem. They are united. Until every writer and every actor is taken care of, they’re going to stay on the picket line. 

Now onto the completely mind boggling part: the absurd residual checks actors received. Residuals are payments made over the long term to actors and other theatrical workers when a TV show or movie is rerun or aired after its original release. Prime example, Robert Carradine revealed a $0 residual he received from Disney for his role in for Lizzie Mcguire, and not the only person to be given that mockery. This check came back all the way from 2019, so that means these issues are not new, and the strike only drove the actors to speak out against the major corporations. “Orange Is the New Black” actress Kimiko Glenn posted her own residuals from the hit Netflix show. She appeared in 44 episodes and only made $27.30 in residuals. Actress Raeden Greer posted her own residual receipts, she showed two instances where she received “negative” amounts for work on American Horror Story: Coven. She shows one amount for negative $0.18 and another for negative $0.20, and again, she is not the only actor/actress to have received negative checks. 

If you kept up with the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike, you may have heard of the controversial tree trimmings at Universal. The trees were groomed in a very aggressive manner. It took away shade for the picketing workers at Universal right before a 90+ degree week. The trimmed trees are LA city managed street trees, meaning they’re not even Universal property. These brazen corporations think they can get away with this by taking perfectly good shade that existed in order for—you know—humans to have shade and not die from heat strokes. 

With cooperation from the Bureau of Street Services, they found that no tree trimming permits have been issued over the last 3 years for this location outside Universal Studios. And they did all this with “the rules don’t apply to us” in their minds. This “we can do whatever we want” attitude is their rich person privilege we are really fighting against. Their victory was the publicity, since Universal Studios’ punishment was a mere citation and $250 fine. 

After 148 days of a hard fought battle and a triumphant victory, the writers guild secured the guarantee that a minimum number of writers be hired on every show, a guarantee that comedy-variety writers be paid the same in streaming as in TV, provisions that mean better pay for screenwriters, better pension and health for writing teams, script fees for staff writers for the first time, and protections against A.I. that mean that A.I. can’t write scripts, edit scripts, or undermine writers rights and credits. The biggest of all, a success based residual. So for the first time, when more people watch a movie or TV show on streaming, the writer that created it will make more money too. These are all things that they swore to the writers, five months ago, they would never give up. But they went on strike and hung together, until they were forced to come to the table and meet their demands.