Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “
OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. View more opinion on CNN.
For the first time in 15 years, Hollywood writers are on strike, which means the industry is forced to hit pause on producing many of your favorite television shows.
Good for the writers. We should all stand with them – and perhaps emulate them.
Writing as a profession feels more precarious than ever (take it from me, a freelance journalist). Opportunities for writers feel like they’re constricting as once-great newsrooms collapse, many companies rely on a force of often-disposable freelancers, and ChatGPT threatens all of our livelihoods.
At the heart of the conflict between the writers and the studios is the writers’ fairly straightforward desire for some job security – to not be treated like gig workers, and to make writing for television a sustainable career into the future.
In a statement from Writers Guild of America leadership, the union said that the studios “have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.”
According to the negotiating committee for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), who represent the Hollywood Studios, the union’s “primary sticking points are ‘mandatory staffing,’ and ‘duration of employment’ — Guild proposals that would require a company to staff a show with a certain number of writers for a specified period of time, whether needed or not.” According to the AMPTP, they “presented a comprehensive package proposal to the Guild last night which included generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals.
The AMPTP also indicated to the WGA that it is prepared to improve that offer, but was unwilling to do so because of the magnitude of other proposals still on the table that the Guild continues to insist upon.” And management is under pressure as the TV and movie industries face economic pressures that have led to layoffs and budget cuts in an effort to make streaming profitable and sustainable.
The union’s demands seem entirely reasonable. Television writers, like most workers in America, deserve predictable working periods. Workers in most industries should not simply be at the beck and call of their boss, employed when convenient and discarded when not. It should be on the studios to anticipate how many writers they may need, and to pay workers fairly, even if they miscalculate. Otherwise, all of the burdens of a freelance system fall on the freelancers, and none on the employer.
Lucky for Hollywood writers, then, to have a union. These kinds of reasonable demands are not easily made by individual writers, who simply don’t have the power to tell potential bosses “you have to hire me for a specified period of time.” In a one-on-one negotiation, bosses can simply laugh them off and go hire someone else. But when writers all band together to bargain collectively, their power soars.
That, of course, is the benefit of unions, which are the reason we have weekends, child labor laws (that, notably, some Republicans are trying to undo), minimum wages (the raising of which many Republicans routinely fight), worker safety regulations and workers compensation, among many other protections.
But unions aren’t just a relic of an age in which a manual labor force needed basic protections, like safety equipment and no more kids in coal mines. In an era where the wage gap between a company’s top brass and its workers is wider than ever – American CEOs now make an average of $670 in pay for every $1 a worker makes – the ability for workers to advocate for themselves is more necessary than ever. And if history is any guide, workers are at their most powerful when they stand together.
It has been thrilling over the past few years to see what has looked like a resurgence of unions in the US. Workers at some of America’s most recognizable companies, including Amazon and Starbucks, have attempted to unionize; in my own industry, journalists have formed unions to advocate for better pay and fairer employment practices. But the unfortunate truth is that despite better coverage of unionization efforts, American unions are not doing particularly well.
The high-profile unionization efforts at Amazon and Starbucks had mixed results as companies pushed back hard and often refused to negotiate. Union membership in the US is declining and has been for decades. In fact, the percentage of Americans in a union is at its lowest ever: Just 1 in 10.
Of course, not all jobs lend themselves to unionization. But the decline of unions in the US has come alongside a decline in worker power, and an increase in the power of companies to exploit workers, all coupled with a government that provides far too little for its citizens.
American workers overwhelmingly lack support systems that are considered basic in similarly developed and prosperous countries, from paid parental leave to paid vacation to universal healthcare. Our health care remains – bizarrely – tied to employment, which gives companies significant power over workers, who are far less free to quit, demand better treatment, or seek employment elsewhere if their ability to avoid medical bankruptcy hinges on maintaining their job.
Globalization has come with many positives, including lifting millions out of poverty, but it has also created fears that companies will simply move abroad if their American workers demand too much. And business interests, often with support from the Republican Party, have pushed Orwellian-named “Right to Work” laws in a growing number of US states. Now, more than half of states have Right to Work laws on the books, which throw up barriers to union membership and make it much, much harder for workers to collectively bargain.
It’s true that, historically, unions thrived when manufacturing and other blue-collar industries did. But over and over again, people in industries excluded from unionization have shown what’s possible, from farm workers to Hollywood creatives.
Will it be annoying if your favorite television show suddenly goes dark or doesn’t have fresh episodes? Sure. But a little perspective is in order: One reason you’re at home watching television and not working all day and night in a dangerous poverty-wage job is because of unions. And many of our workplaces, and certainly American work culture, could be vastly improved if workers had more say and companies were more accountable. Plus, if you appreciate a creative output like television, you should want to support the creative people who make it.
The Hollywood writers are taking a much-needed stand for their own rights and the future of their industry. That’s admirable – and more Americans should be asking themselves if a union might improve their lives, too.
