Copeland's Corner: July 21, 2023
Since when is it unrealistic to fairly compensate workers for the labor they provide?
Last week I wrote about the strikes in Hollywood by SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Radio Artists) and WGA (Writers Guild of America) in Hollywood against AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). As of today, WGA has been striking for 80 days, SAG-AFTRA for 8 days with no end in sight.
Before I continue, in the interest of disclosure I want to let you know that I am personally a member of both unions.
While the strikes are Hollywood based, what’s going on here is really a microcosm of how businesses and corporate conglomerates have devalued workers and their contributions in the service of greed and delivering higher dividends and stock prices to shareholders in America in recent decades. Bad, disrespectful treatment of workers is happening in most industries where CEOs at the top make millions of dollars in salary and bonuses, stockholders increase their portfolio balances and the people who actually do the work are struggling to figure out how they can pay their mortgages and send their kids to college. The days of my childhood, when a person would get a job at a company, work for twenty or twenty-five years in the same place and then comfortably retire with a nice pension and a gold watch have been gone for years. Today, you have a job until the millionaire or billionaire running the company thinks he can increase profits and share prices by laying you off, making the person who used to work next to you do your job in addition to the job they’re already doing (the fact that they’re still employed at all is their perk) and then shoveling eight figure annual bonuses into their own pockets for the wizardry of their job performance by doing so. There is zero appreciation in many organizations for the people who are generating the profits that are paying for the yachts, beach houses and private planes enjoyed by those at the top. This has got to stop across the board.
In the last two decades, we’ve seen the greatest transfer of wealth from the 99% to the 1% since the Gilded Age. This has got to stop. There’s got to be equity. Those with the sweat on their brow deserve better than the crumbs that inadvertently fall from the tables of the gluttons at the top. As far as my unions are concerned, I’m not holding my breath. We’re in for a long haul. The studios aren’t even coming to the table to negotiate. The attitude of the studios can best be summed up by an unnamed upper-level management executive who was quoted in Deadline.com as saying that their strategy is to starve the unions. He says, “We’ll come back to the table when people start losing their homes.”
Bob Iger, the head of Disney which counts ABC, ESPN, Pixar and Lucasfilm among its assets, has said that what the unions are asking for is unrealistic. Iger’s new contract pays him a salary of $27 million a year. The average writer in Hollywood makes $68,000 a year. Iger makes over $75,000 a day. Since when is it unrealistic to fairly compensate workers for the labor they provide, the toil that’s generating millions?
One of the major issues of the strikes is that writers and actors want fair compensation for the work they do for the streaming services. People who write and perform in programs that are streaming hits should be allowed to share in that revenue. Several surprising stories have come out this week about how people working in the streaming industry are paid. There’s the actress from Orange is the New Black, one of the biggest streaming hits in the history of the medium, who was a regular cast member working sixteen-hour days yet still had to work as a cashier in order to make ends meet. And there’s Mandy Moore, who co-starred for six years on broadcast television’s biggest hit in ages, This is Us. The show is currently available for streaming where it’s raking in millions. Ms. Moore says she recently got her first royalty check for streaming. It came to a grand total of one cent. A penny.
In the meantime, the studios are finding ways to make the strike advantageous to them. For the last few years, they’ve made deals awarding nine figure contracts to top TV names like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal), Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story, The People vs OJ Simpson), Kenya Barris (Black-ish), and companies owned by high profile people like Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s Archewell Inc. and Higher Ground Productions owned by the Obamas. Some have produced hits (Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton); most have underperformed. The word is that the studios are going to use the strikes as an excuse to invoke the force majeure clause in their contracts that enables the studio to cancel all obligations if circumstances prevent the fulfillment of said contract. It’s a move that can potentially save them hundreds of millions. All of this while 87% of SAG-AFTRA members make $26,000 a year, over $20,000 under the minimum threshold to receive healthcare benefits.
Workers are finally saying “ENOUGH!” Hotel workers in Southern California are currently on strike, seeking better pay and working conditions. UPS workers may strike as early as August 1 for the same reason. Be prepared to see more.
I’m going to leave you with this simple ask. Please support workers however you can.