Beech Tree News Network

It’s a showstopper alright! Both the Writer’s Guild of America and Screen Actor’s Guild are on strike.  Hollywood is effectively shut down.  The last time this happened was in 1960, when Ronald Reagan was president of the Actors Union, The Apartment, starring the late Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine was Best Picture, and the actors were holding out for more money in the form of residuals for movies shown on tv.  Sixty-three years later, with the industry facing severe economic headwinds, rising costs and shrinking movie attendance, unions are again pushing for better pay.  This time, with streaming and other platforms disrupting the industry, they’re also looking for some guarantees that new technologies such as artificial intelligence won’t ruin their careers.  

The writers have been picketing since May.  The actors joined them on Friday July 14.  The battle lines are drawn with neither side seemingly ready to back down.  On day 1 of the strike, Union president and former Nanny star Fran Drescher says “we are being systematically squeezed out of our livelihood.  We’re all going down unless we rescue ourselves right now from people who are doing bad things to good people”.  

The writer’s union is in the same boat.  They’ve watched their pay erode in the era of streaming tv.  In years past, a staff of writers for network shows like Seinfeld would typically stay with the show throughout production, which could mean years of steady paychecks.  Now, they say streaming has cut the number of writers for each show and the length of time they’re hired.  In other words, it’s harder than ever for them to make a living.

Studios say they’ve offered writers the largest pay increase in decades.  Writers say it’s still well below what they deserve.  Screenwriter John August and tv showrunner Yalin Chang are negotiators for the writer’s guild.  August says, “you could give us some of that money back but that still doesn’t make us whole”.  Writers also want a guarantee that AI won’t be used to generate scripts.  Actors don’t want their likeness used without their consent, which is what AI is.  In addition to the obvious reasons, they say quality will suffer if AI is used.  Studios say they’re willing to talk about the use of AI but haven’t ruled it out. 

Professor Robert Reich was labor secretary under President Clinton.  He says “what’s the incentive of CEO’s to negotiate with workers when workers are losing power and can be replaced by AI or other technologies? The answer is we have a country in which we depend on people having enough money to buy all the stuff that all of the company’s create.  If they don’t have enough money in their pockets to buy everything that is capable of being created, the economy can’t function.  At some point, we’ve got to understand that we are all in this together”.  

Jeanie Burgans had a number of tv writing jobs but she’s still living hand to mouth.  “For the first time ever, after 9 years of being a television writer, I applied for the food stamp program”.  When ask if she plans to give up and find a new job, she answered the way I figure most all writers would.  It’s definitely the way I would answer: she says “I am a writer.  That’s what I’m supposed to be doing and is the career I’ve built.  I don’t plan on giving up.  I’ve not given up a day in my life”.  

The AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) says unions are to blame for shutting Hollywood down.  Unions say they’d like to keep negotiating.  For now, they’re letting their feet and signs do the talking.  (Tracy Smith, CBS Sunday Morning).  It sounds to me like we’ll be cleaning out our DVR’s and watching old movies and repeats for quite a while.  My original thought was “at least this is in the summer and most shows are repeats.  But what if this drags on past the fall?  I just read that CBS will air Yellowstone repeats this fall.  CBS and Fox will rely heavily on unscripted reality shows this fall.

Below are the links to my podcast, Blendertainment

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=w5jHghPVRmaTaP5ZEI-wzQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172