What You Need to Know About the Writers’ Strike
The reason so many people suffer when one group strikes is because so many profit from their suffering when they don’t.
What You Need to Know About the Writers’ Strike
Here’s the thing my friends, the reason so many people suffer when one group strikes is because so many profit from their suffering when they don’t.
I am a writer. I am married to a music writer. We get a fraction of a penny each time our work streams; and that’s not a metaphor, we literally only receive pennies for our work from streaming services. (For example, music streaming services generally pay less than a tenth of a cent per stream.) When people see your name on the big screen, they think, “They made it! They are successful.” However, many “successful” writers are on food stamps, pinching pennies, and struggling to make ends meet.
If your quarterly pay check went from $12,000 to $4 wouldn’t you strike too?!
The Writers Guild of America has gone on strike due to unfair streaming compensation (and more, including AI for all writers).* The time the WGA went on strike in 1988, reality TV was born; and the damage to writers has never really recovered (despite the script writing that does in fact go on in reality TV). Writers (myself) and music composers (my husband) are part of a production that’s known as “Below-the-Line-Workers” (hair/makeup artist, costumers, craft services, gaffers, lights, sound, electrical, payroll, tutors, etc.), which includes most everyone who works on a production that’s not above the line (actors, directors, most producers). This means that when the writers go on strike, nearly everyone below the line is also out of work and suffers as well, even if they are not on strike. In other words, in order to stand up for ourselves, our friends may temporarily suffer as a result; and that’s not an easy ask to live with.
As a writer, we mostly write on spec. This means we write for free, hoping to be hired. When you’re offered a contract, you can make money upfront and sometimes on the backend; but often times, my husband and I will count the hours we worked on something divided by the pay we received, and it amounts to less than minimum wage (before residuals / royalties). This, we consider the cost of freedom to pursue our dreams. The truth of the matter is that often behind the glitz and glamour, a culture of exploitation exists. We hesitate to complain for fear we might offend those who hire us and as a result, we might no longer continue to be offered the work that we do. We worry that complaining might make us appear to be ungrateful. We know how lucky we are to get to do what we most love doing for a living, but we can’t pay the bills with love.
There are far more artists willing to work for free, just to be able to have the credit (to have a chance to join the union, the 2% of people, who make a really good living at it), than there typically are qualified artisans who have paid their dues and deserve better compensation. The ever-looming threat of being replaced by someone who is willing to accept less is not only a dysfunctional relationship, it is also what keeps us playing small and accepting less than we are owed. (Take note, I did not use the subjective word “deserve” but the factual word “owed.”)
The arts and entertainment industry creates careers that wax and wane from feast to famine. Sure, about 2% of all union members are exceptionally wealthy and will never have to worry about housing insecurity. These are celebrities who are paid far more than the rest of us, or people who played the game and didn’t complain. Many of us, especially those of us who are in marginalized groups, have been taught the same motto we teach pre-schoolers, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset,” because we know how lucky we are to get anything—just to be considered a working professional in this industry. It’s easier to “suck it up” and deal with the inequities, when you’re fortunate enough to build on past wealth received because of an inheritance, or because you have a spouse with a stable income for those times when you’re out of work, or when you haven’t faced any serious health challenges; but we don’t all begin on the same starting line, and for some of us that line is always moving. Besides, aren’t we all collectively tired of “sucking it up” with less, when we can plainly see, that if the compensation were spread more evenly there’d be more than enough for us all?
I acknowledge that in a world where the living wage doesn’t cover the cost of living, integrity can be a luxury. Our household has been in more than one union. We know the pain of strikes. (We lost our management company from a strike.) Empathy is part of what makes it so hard to make the decision to strike (or join the picket lines). We know that our fight will cause others pain, and it’s not something we ever want to do if we can avoid it.
We also know there is power in numbers. If you want the strike to end, stand with your cohorts. The root word of union is unity, to unite and act as one. The greatest progressive movements in history were often small acts, repeated consistently, at the hands of everyday people. The Montgomery bus boycott from December 1955 - December 1956, was an enduring peaceful protest (albeit met with some incidents of aggression) that led to the Supreme Court upholding the district court's ruling that segregation on public buses and transportation was against the law. It took over a year of sacrifice and commitment to civil engagement, but it set a ball of equality in motion that hasn’t stopped rolling since; and that’s a good thing. This is not to conflate the two movements, but to demonstrate the power of a well-organized strike.
Strikes take courage, compassion, and patience. The greater number of people who strike, the sooner the strike ends. Imagine if all the guilds went on strike in unison, as a united front (including all below-the-line essential workers preventing reality TV from shooting)… the potential amount of money that would be lost by the very top (corporations and advertisers) could end the strike within hours. The writer’s guild demands are not great or unreasonable, they are for fair compensation and protection from A.I. If you are in a sister union and you are receiving fair compensation, organize and “be the tide that raises all boats.”
“When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower someone else.” - Toni Morrison
Photo by Margot Hartford
Sage Justice is achingly sincere. Balancing wisdom and humor she most often writes deeply personal solution based pieces about the enduring virtues that connect us all: love and healing. She is an award-winning playwright and critically acclaimed performing artist who has appeared on stages from Madison Square Garden in New York City, to The Comedy Store in Hollywood, California. Ms. Justice is the author of Sage Words FREEDOM Book One, an activist, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and an alumna Artist-In-Residence of Chateau Orquevaux, France. She is a co-founder of The Unity Project which fuses activism with art, to educate and inspire, with a special emphasis on community engagement to end homelessness. She has a series of short reels about living with the rare genetic disorder, Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that you can find in a highlight reel on her Instagram page @SageWords2027.
