Strike!

The Writers Guild strike really ought to highlight the fact that unions aren't just for guys in hardhats and factories. Joss Whedon is right to complain about the New York Times' coverage here. And he's right to argue against the notion that writers have it easy. But a more important point is that, although they don't fit the aesthetic for what most Americans think unions should look like, a union is still extremely important for these workers, and would be extremely important for other, non-hardhat wearing workers, as well.

This is a group of people for whom a union is absolutely necessary. In most other industries, firms keep people on the payroll all the time to come up with ideas for future products. GE doesn't wait around for eccentric inventors to show up with great ideas, they have engineers who work for them all the time. The entertainment industry doesn't work like this, nor in all likelihood, could it. Instead, you have a bunch of people who write and write and write, coming up with ideas for new shows and movies all while they are not on the payroll. It's only when an idea gets picked up that the writer gets paid. The studios essentially have an enormous pool of people brainstorming and writing the shows and movies of tomorrow, all the time, for free.

This is worse than piecework--all the scripts and ideas that don't ever get used are still valuable to the studios because having a larger array of proposed scripts gives studios (presumably) better options from which to pick the lucky few that get chosen.

When a writer does get an idea picked up, then, they need to be well compensated for it, because they don't know where, when, and if their next writing job will show up. So they need a union so they can band together and make sure that they can actually make a living doing. They are constantly thrown back out into the reserve army of labor--unemployment--not due to poorly performed work or instability, but as part of the built-in structure of this particular labor market. When the movie is done, the job is over, and you need to hope the residuals are enough to get by.

The current conflict, of course, is about "new media," and it is completely reasonable for the writers to want their contracts updated to take into account changes in technology since the last round of negotiations (in the 1980's--have there been any important changes in technology since then? I forget.).


Support the union in New York.