As Writers Guild positions itself to make a deal, isolation of actors’ and writers’ strike remains greatest danger
Some 11,000 film and television writers have been on strike in the US for four months, 65,000 actors for more than a month and a half. These workers, members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) respectively, have been conducting a brave, determined struggle against some of the largest corporations in the world.
Thousands have walked the picket lines in extreme heat, experiencing increasing economic hardship as the weeks have gone by. One factor no doubt keeping up the spirits of the writers and actors is the knowledge that they have vast public support: the mega-corporate chiefs are widely despised.
Faced with contracts expiring for the WGA, Directors Guild of America (DGA) and SAG-AFTRA, the clumsy, cruel plan of the conglomerates was transparent. They intended to allow the WGA to walk out and expected to reach deals with the DGA, which they did, and SAG-AFTRA, allowing them to corner and crush the writers.
A July 11 article in Deadline, based on conversations with studio executives, spelled this out quite explicitly. The companies had no intention of negotiating with the striking writers, the article explained. One individual, familiar with the views of industry executives, told Deadline, “I think we’re in for a long strike, and they’re going to let it bleed out.”
“Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2,” the article went on, “Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to ‘break the WGA,’ as one studio exec blatantly put it. … ‘The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,’” a studio executive told Deadline. “Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement.”
This was an open declaration of war on the writers and the workers in the industry generally.
The uprising by SAG-AFTRA members, reflected in the open letter eventually signed by 3,000 performers calling on the union’s officials not to sell them out, which made possible the actors’ July 14 walkout, threw a monkey wrench into the companies’ plans.
On August 11, nearly 15 weeks into the writers’ strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) finally offered a counterproposal to the WGA’s demands. Four days later, the WGA came back with its positions.
On August 21, the companies summoned the WGA leaders to meet the following day with a group of industry titans—something along the lines of feudal lords permitting their peons to enter their presence.
As the WGA explains in an update, the “invitation to meet with Bob Iger [of Disney], Donna Langley [of Universal], Ted Sarandos [of Netflix], David Zaslav [of Warner Bros. Discovery] and Carol Lombardini [president of the AMPTP] … was accompanied by a message that it was past time to end this strike and that the companies were finally ready to bargain for a deal.”
Instead, writes the WGA, “on the 113th day of the strike—and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side—we were met with a lecture [from the CEOs] about how good their single and only counteroffer was.” The WGA negotiators, in the words of a guild update, “explained all the ways in which their counter’s limitations and loopholes and omissions failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place.” In other words, the companies’ proposal was miserable and a further provocation, part of the all-out war they are prosecuting against the writers and actors.
At the meeting, the CEOs announced their plans to go over the heads of the WGA directly to the membership by releasing their offer “within the next 24 hours.” In fact, they issued a six-page document some 20 minutes after the August 22 meeting ended. To this date, there is no indication of any support among writers for the deal.
On the all-important issues of staffing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and residuals, the companies have not essentially budged an inch, offering vague commitments at best, not worth the paper they are written on. Typical is the evasive, arrogant response of the companies to revelations about the scandalous amounts—mere pennies—writers (and actors) are receiving in residual payments from popular programs on streaming services. According to the WGA, “the companies say they have made a major concession by offering to allow six WGA staff to study limited streaming viewership data for the next three years, so we can return in 2026 to ask once again for a viewership-based residual. In the meantime, no writer can be told by the WGA about how well their project is doing, much less receive a residual based on that data.”
The WGA and SAG-AFTRA leaderships are looking for a deal that they can “sell” to their members. As of yet, the AMPTP has not seen fit to offer enough crumbs to fill the bill. They are remaining intransigent, with the full support of Wall Street and the Biden administration (although the latter has issued hypocritical statements of “support” to the strikers).
These are companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in assets, which can withstand a strike for months. No doubt they are experiencing some pain, but they can endure temporary discomfort in the cause of “breaking” the writers and actors, and the industry workforce generally. Moreover, Disney, Amazon, Netflix, Warner Bros and the rest are acting here on behalf of the US ruling elite as a whole. They are determined to “teach” not only the writers and actors, but the entire working class, an invaluable lesson: This is the treatment you will receive if you dare to oppose the dictates of the corporate oligarchy, being starved and driven back to work.
Their message is: The companies are all-powerful. In reality, they are not, and workers have a growing sense of their own immense power, but this will not be taken forward by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA leaderships. The latter have no strategy or intention to mount the type of struggle necessary to counter the class war of the corporations.
The WGA recently issued a report, “The New Gatekeepers—How Disney, Amazon, and Netflix Will Take Over Media,” which describes “a future of increased market power that could soon leave just three companies controlling what content is made, what consumers can watch, and how they can watch it.” The study asserts that pay and working conditions for writers “have become so dire, and media conglomerates so unresponsive, that 11,500 writers went on strike in May 2023. Without intervention, these conglomerates will seize control of the media landscape and the streaming era’s advances for creativity and choice will be lost.” It further points out that “Wall Street is pushing media towards an environment of comfortable collusion among a small number of mega-firms.”
An organization dedicated to the interests of the working class would instantly set out a course of action to resist and defeat these monopolists. Instead, the WGA pathetically suggests new government regulations be implemented, something that will never happen under either the Democrats or Republicans.
In the face of the ruthless conglomerates, driven by the objective crisis of American capitalism to drastically lower costs and cut their joint workforce, the WGA can only claim that the companies position is “irrational” because the guild’s “fair and reasonable” proposals would cost the giant firms so little: only 0.006 percent of Amazon’s revenues, 0.027 percent of NBC Universal’s, 0.088 percent of Disney’s, etc.
An organization of struggle would be ashamed to boast about how miserable its demands were! The WGA goes on: “Despite the AMPTP’s attempt at a detour around us, we remain committed to direct negotiations with the companies. That’s actually how a deal gets made and the strike ends. That will be good for the rest of the industry and the companies as well.”
The WGA may not have the same number of highly paid bureaucrats as the UAW or the Teamsters, but the union apparatus it is not one iota more progressive or representative of its membership. It negotiates and speaks for a privileged, upper-middle-class layer, tied to the Democratic Party and its orbit and committed to the existing economic and social setup.
The current course of the strike can only lead to disaster, the latest disaster in a series going back at least to the conclusion of the 2007-08 strike, which laid the basis for the impoverishment of writers and actors over the intervening years.
The isolation of the writers-actors’ strike must be broken. This involves a fight not only against the bankrupt policies of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA officials, but against the deliberate isolation of the struggle by the entire AFL-CIO bureaucracy. Working with the Biden administration, the union bureaucracy has blocked strikes by 22,000 dockworkers and 340,000 UPS workers that would have immensely strengthened the writers-actors’ strike.
But more battalions of workers are coming into struggle in the coming weeks, including 170,000 GM, Ford and Stellantis workers in the US and Canada and more than 85,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in seven different US states and the District of Columbia.
The great strength of the working class lies in its strategic position in production and its social power. No section of workers can take on the full strength of the ruling class by itself, and that is why all of these struggles have to be united. But this requires breaking the stranglehold of the trade union bureaucracy over every section of the working class.
A new strategy is necessary, bound up with the building of rank-and-file committees, devoted to the interests of the actors and writers and not to what “will be good for the rest of the industry and the companies.” What’s “good for … the companies,” as they openly proclaim, is the destruction of the writers’ and actors’ working and living conditions. The answer to that is the direct appeal to workers in the entertainment industry and every other sector. The cause of the actors and writers must become the cause of the entire working class, the signal for a general offensive against the corporations and their governments.
As the comment posted yesterday on the WSWS by a striking actor argued: “The only way to fight against these international conglomerates who own every aspect of our world is to form rank-and file committees, mobilizing workers from every sector of industry and making our demands known. Now is not the time for concessions that will only bring about our own demise. We must band together and bring these pathologically greedy CEOs to their knees. This is class war. We need to start acting like it.”
Rank-and-file committees among the actors and writers would fight to extend the strike and shut down the entertainment industry as a whole, not going to Teamsters and IATSE officials, who will only betray them, but to the rank and file. This is unthinkable to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, because it would cut across its relations with the other union bureaucracies and the Democrats, who reign in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and other centers of production and whose officials the WGA and SAG-AFTRA repeatedly bring before their “solidarity” rallies.
Rank-and-file committees would put an immediate end to the 140 “interim agreements,” allowing productions to go on, negotiated by SAG-AFTRA, which demonstrate the union’s capitulatory stance. Such committees would call for an end to secret, behind-closed-doors negotiations, raise inflation-busting wage and residual increases, fight for enlarged and guaranteed staffing of writers’ rooms, demand the opening of the companies’ books so that writers and actors can see the reality for themselves, insist on banning any AI that affects workers’ jobs or conditions—and make these proposals nonnegotiable.
As part of their thoroughgoing acquiescence to the capitalist status quo, the WGA (and SAG-AFTRA) leaders accept the current artistic and cultural conditions, which condemn so many of their members to writing and performing in rubbish and betraying their own finest artistic interests and aspirations. Rank-and-file committees would also have the responsibility to encourage, publicize and support film and television work that sheds light on the realities of American social life, including working class life. Relying on the “good will” of the companies to permit shows and films from time to time that shed light on conditions is a losing proposition. Such a campaign would inevitably entail the fight for the genuinely democratic and socialist reorganization of culture and society, in the interests of the general population.
Following abjectly in the wake of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA officialdoms, justifying and legitimizing their every action, is Jacobin magazine, the mouthpiece of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a non-socialist wing of the very capitalist Democratic Party.
In its latest piece, “The Hollywood Studios Still Aren’t Serious About Ending the Writers’ Strike,” Jacobin works away at what it does best: sowing complacency and lulling to sleep as many people as are susceptible to its arguments as possible.
After detailing the companies’ actions in their recent negotiations with the WGA, the article asserts that “the executives have yet again proven themselves to be clueless: there was never a chance that WGA leaders were going to accept an early-stage counterproposal from the AMPTP that has so many remaining issues. Even after more than one hundred days of a nationwide strike, the studio heads are still monumentally out of touch.”
The studio executives, in fact, are not “clueless” and “out of touch,” they are operating directly and coldbloodedly in line with the needs of the companies, the financial aristocracy, the Biden White House and the entire American ruling class.
Jacobin’s confidence in the WGA leadership is touching, but, more importantly, in passing, the magazine gives its stamp of approval to the strategy of the WGA and AFL-CIO apparatus, the quarantining of the writers and actors, a recipe for defeat. Jacobin will bear a share of the responsibility for that if the situation is not turned around, through the growth of rank-and-file action.
We urge writers and actors to consider these questions and initiate rank-and-file committees independent of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA officialdom.
Hollywood’s Working Class Turns to Nonprofit Funds to Make Ends Meet During Strike
NEW YORK (AP) — Shawn Batey was sweating in the August sun on the 100th day of the writers strike, carrying her “IATSE Solidarity” sign on the picket line outside Netflix’s New York offices, but she was glad to be there.
A props assistant and documentary filmmaker, Batey is a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the union that represents many entertainment workers, in Hollywood and New York, but also around the country. She recently worked on “Pose” and “Russian Doll,” but since the writers strike began in May and the actors joined them on July 14, she’s had trouble covering her expenses. So she applied to the emergency fund from the Entertainment Community Fund for help.
“They say apply when you’re at a critical point,” said Batey, adding that she needed to show her union card, her wages and, in her case, that she’d worked as a member of the union for a certain number of years. The application is lengthy, but she said, “It is definitely worth for people to apply. Just be patient.”
Batey — who used her grant to pay her rent, phone bill, and electric bill, and other expenses — is one of 2,600 film or television workers that the Entertainment Community Fund has helped during these strikes, granting $5.4 million as of Aug. 25. The fund, formerly known as The Actors Fund, is one of several nonprofits that have long supported workers who make the entertainment industry run, but who were essentially gig workers long before the term was coined. That includes both unionized and nonunionized workers, and those on strike as well as those who’ve lost work because of it.
The fund has received the most requests for help from people in California, followed by Atlanta and New York. It’s raised $7.6 million so far and is granting about $500,000 a week. For now, it’s issuing one-time grants of up to $2,000 for individuals or $3,000 for families.
“It’s a lot of the crafts people, the wardrobe people, the makeup people, the carpenters that build the sets, the painters, the electricians,” said Tom Exton, chief advancement officer for the Entertainment Community Fund. He said the fund has supported industry members through many previous crises, including the AIDS epidemic and financial crisis, and would continue to fundraise to provide help as needed.
Another charity created more than 100 years ago to help entertainment workers get through tough periods, the Motion Picture & Television Fund, helps administer funds from some of the unions to provide emergency assistance specifically for their members. It declined to disclose the amount of financial support its received from those unions. The fund also provides financial and counseling support to unaffiliated workers and offers housing to industry veterans over the age of 70.
Bob Beitcher, its president and CEO, said many of the lowest-paid entertainment workers have little savings or reserves coming out of the pandemic. The federal programs and protections, like eviction moratoriums that helped keep entertainment workers and many others afloat during COVID-19 shutdowns, also aren’t around now.
“They are losing their homes. They’re losing their cars and trucks. They’re losing their health insurance,” Beitcher said. “And it’s pretty awful.”
Striking actors and writers have accused the studios of purposefully prolonging the strike so that they lose their homes.
MPTF has been getting 200 calls a day as opposed to 20 a day before the strike. Over 80% of callers are “below-the-line” workers, meaning not the actors, writers, directors, or producers. They’ve processed 1,000 requests for financial assistance through the end of July, the fund said, with applicants waiting an average of two weeks for the money to be dispersed.
Beitcher called for greater support from industry members, in an open letter on Aug. 17, saying, “As a community, we are not doing enough to support the tens of thousands of crew members and others who live paycheck to paycheck and depend on this industry for their livelihood. They have become the forgotten casualties during these strikes, overlooked by the media.”
MPTF said it has raised $1.5 million since the letter was published.
The SAG-AFTRA Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to support the members of the actors union, quickly raised $15 million with initial donations of $1 million or more from Dwayne Johnson, Meryl Streep, and George and Amal Clooney in the first three weeks of the actors strike. Other $1 million donations came from Luciana and Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Deborra-lee Furness and Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, Julia Roberts, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah Winfrey.
Cyd Wilson, the foundation’s executive director, said her pitch to the top talent is that even the biggest stars need the army of smaller actors, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, to make their movies and television shows.
“Those are the people that we’re going to be helping the most, because those are the people that are going to be hurting the most,” she said.
The foundation exclusively supports the 160,000 members of the union and 86% of those performers don’t make enough work in a year to qualify for health insurance, Wilson said.
“They waitress, they bartend, they work catering, they drive Uber, they babysit, they dog walk, they housesit. They have all these secondary jobs in order to be able to survive,” she said.
As the strike goes on, the funds expect more and more union members will lose their health insurance because they will not have worked enough hours to remain eligible. A small group of mostly showrunners decided they wanted to specifically fundraise to cover health care for crew members, and set up a fund with the MPTF.
“It’s one thing for us to be sacrificing our own day-to-day for our greater good, but to watch our brother and sister union stand beside us?” said actor and writer Andrea Savage. “We just got together and said, ‘How can we show that we’re there for them? And also really put our money where our mouth is and actually do something concrete?’”
On Wednesday, talk show hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver launched the “Strike Force Five” podcast, with proceeds from the limited run going to the writers and crew on their TV shows. Mint Mobile and premium alcohol maker Diageo signed on as presenting sponsors.
Savage, along with other actors like “Girls” creator Lena Dunham and “Black Monday” star Paul Scheer, started talking on WhatsApp groups, then met on Zoom and eventually founded The Union Solidarity Coalition. They’ve raised $315,000 so far in part from a benefit show in Los Angeles on July 15 that went to the MPTF fund (Savage said she and Scheer covered the cost of the portable toilets).
The writer Liz Benjamin helped set up an initial auction, which included a ceramic vase made by Seth Rogen and a blue dress worn by Abbi Jacobson in the series “Broad City,” raising more than $8,600. A second auction opens in mid-September on eBay.
Batey says she is still trying to figure out how to make ends meet in September and for the rest of the strike. She’s thinking about where else her skills might be applicable and whether to get temporary work outside her field. In the meantime, she supports the striking writers and actors.
“It’s dignity and standing up for yourself,” she said. “So if it means we have to take a hit right now for the bigger cause, it’s worth it.”
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