Meyerson on TAP: The Writers Walk

Since the coming of talking pictures nearly 100 years ago, Hollywood producers have never really liked Hollywood writers. When the industry’s various guilds formed in the 1930s, the studios signed contracts with both the directors’ and the actors’ unions shortly after the Supreme Court deemed collective bargaining constitutional in 1937. They recognized the writers’ guild then, too—the law compelled them to do that—but somehow didn’t get around to agreeing to sign a contract until 1942.

Part of their opposition was rooted in the writers’ inability to shut down production as quickly and completely as the actors and directors, who could stop film production dead in its tracks by just walking off the set. But the studios had a host of screenplays on their shelves, and if the writers walked, it would take months before the soundstages grew silent.

The other part of their opposition was rooted in the fact that both of the Writers Guild’s political factions—the liberals and the radicals—were well to the producers’ left. That didn’t necessarily have to lead to tumultuous labor relations; the West Coast longshoremen were entirely controlled by radicals, but the owners of the ports and docks, who were more right-wing than the studio heads, were able to deal with that union nonetheless. But the writers were a lot more voluble than the longshoremen, and the moguls often just wanted them to shut up.

In time, the Communists—most but not all of them Popular Front Rooseveltians—were driven from the Guild leadership, and later generations of producers proved to be well to the left of the studios’ founders. But even with ideological dislikes taken off the table, the relations between the writers and their employers have remained contentious, generating longer, more bitter, and more frequent strikes than those of the other crafts. Even when some of the writers’ onetime weakness in bargaining was eliminated—today, writers can immediately shut down the late-night talk shows—they still are prey to studio exploitation to a greater degree than actors and directors. (Despite all the changes in the industry, studios are still loath to trash-talk their stars. No one but writers care if they trash-talk their writers.)

The strike that began last night is over many of the same issues that occasioned the last writers’ strike 15 years ago. Then, streaming was just beginning, and payment for a streamed show or film was a bone of contention between the writers and the studios. Since then, streaming has become pervasive. In the years before streaming, contracts stipulated residual payments to writers when their show or film was revived in theaters or re-aired on TV. Today, there are shows and films that become huge hits when they’re streamed—a number have been streamed more than 100 million times—for which payments to writers are scanty, and nothing like the residuals they once received. Meanwhile, TV series have far fewer episodes per season than the 20-plus they used to have, and a much higher share of writers are paid the minimum scale stipulated in contracts than was the case before: both phenomena that have diminished writers’ incomes.

All that explains why 98 percent of the writers who responded to the strike authorization ballot voted yes. It explains why they walked last night.

Will the writers compel the studios to meet their demands (well, a substantial share of their demands)? One of the factors in their favor is their demonstrable solidarity. A couple of years ago, the Guild suggested that its members sever their ties to their agents, as a growing number of the big agencies had also gone in for producing, and as such were sitting on the opposite side of the table from their writer-clients when putting together the deals for pictures and shows. The big agencies, with their massive capital funding and a wide range of other clients (including star athletes), were widely expected to hang tough and see their writers trickle back to them. But none of the writers so trickled, and by the end of last year, all of the agencies had agreed to the writers’ demands.

If they could beat the agencies, the writers surmise, they can beat the studios. Let’s hope they’re right.