Two Strikes You're Out?

So by now all of you have heard about the writers strike. I know that outside of LA there isn't a lot of sympathy for the screenwriter's union (WGA) because the assumption is that these people already make an enormous amount of money. It's true that writers don't fit the normal stereotype of the union worker picketing "da man." There is no dirt under their nails and when they're waving their signs in one hand there is a reasonable chance they're holding a latte with the other.

Still, most of these guys are NOT rolling in it. In 2005 the average annual income of a female film writer was $50,0000. That's $50,000 before their agents and managers got their collective 25%. When you consider that it's virtually impossible to find a halfway decent apartment in a halfway decent neighborhood for less than $1,500 a month in LA it's easy to see why they want to make sure that they're making their fair share of royalties.

I'm not telling you that you should support the writers or that you shouldn't. But I thought I'd let you know the facts just in case you wanted to factor them into your opinions.

Thing is, I'm not at all sure that this strike is going to go the writer's way. The last time the writers striked was in 1988 and that went on for just under 6 months. It would be hard for the writers to say that they won that round. If anything it was a draw for both sides. The thing that worries me about this round is that the producers may have a hidden agenda. I know that makes me sound like a conspiracy freak, but hear me out. The producers began the contract negotiations by asking for a rollback in certain royalties that had been given to writers in their last contract. That's right, the producers were actually asking for writers to settle for less than they had before. They later withdrew that request but still, it was an odd way to start a negotiation with a union.

Now those same producers are saying that they will not return to the negotiation table while there are picketers on the street and there are some loosely substantiated rumors that they won't come back to the negotiation table until the strike is over all together. The whole point of picketing is to put pressure on TPTB to make the workers an offer they can live with, not to get TPTB to condescend to talk to them.

So why would the producers put out such an odd, seemingly self-defeating demand? Maybe the point here isn't the negotiations. Maybe the point is to weaken, and perhaps come close to destroying the union itself. Working as a writer is not like working as a bellman at some fancy hotel. People spend their lives dreaming of the opportunity of making it as a writer in Hollywood. They move here, live off rice and beans and work their asses off all in the hopes that one of the fifty million scripts they've written will sell. Now the producers are inviting those out-of-work-dreamers a chance of a lifetime: well paid writing jobs, all they have to do is cross the picket line.

It's hard to ask someone to pass up a chance to follow a dream that they've been working for all their lives. It's true that if they say yes they could be blackballed from the union but these people aren't in the union. They haven't been able to join because up to this point no one's offered them work. If enough of these people accept the offers being handed to them the union will be between a rock and a hard place. They could call off the strike and accept defeat which means that they've played their trump card and lost and now have to accept whatever treatment/pay the producers offer or they could continue to picket their way into bankruptcy.
I could just be being a pessimist here. Maybe the producers will go to the tables before the strike is over and maybe the writers will get at least some of their demands met.

Maybe. But then again, maybe not.

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING