Choosing to Not Share the Pain
On March 14, the WGA released a report titled “Writers Are Not Keeping Up.” It reports how compensation for writing has been negatively impacted by streaming.
“On TV staffs, more writers are working at minimum regardless of experience, often for fewer weeks, or in mini-rooms, while showrunners are left without a writing staff to complete the season,” the report states. “And while series budgets have soared over the past decade, median writer-producer pay has fallen.”
It points to an increase in writers working for the Minimum Basic Agreement across the board in roles ranging from staff writers (98 percent of whom now work for the MBA minimum — up 12 percent from the 2013–14 season) to showrunners (49 percent are at the minimum — up 16 percent). In overall terms, the percentage of TV writers working for the MBA minimum increased from a third in 2013–14 to nearly half of all writers in 2021–22.
The WGA strike has been in the streets for over one hundred days now and the solidarity with their demands is waning. According to The Hollywood Reporter, there are at least 40 productions that have been granted waivers, including the forthcoming comedy “Bride Hard” starring Rebel Wilson and the drama “Mother Mary” starring Anne Hathaway. Daytime talk shows who generally do not use writers from the WGA are still in production and both Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore are drawing the ire of their recent announcements that they will resume production sans writers.
Maher posted on X that the show will be coming back without any writers or writing. "The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people with issues, problems, and concerns. I love my writers, I am one of them, but I'm not prepared to lose an entire year and see so many below-the-line people suffer so much."
Who in this scenario is to blame for non-striking workers (below-the-line people) feeling the pain designed to be inflicted on the Big Money class?
Below-the-line crew refers to everybody else including:
Assistant director
Art director
Best boy electric and grip
Boom operator
Camera operator
Character generator (CG) operator (television)
Director of photography
Costume designer
Composer
Dolly grip
Film editor
Gaffer
Graphic artist
Hair stylist
Key grip
Line producer
Location manager
Make-up artist
Production assistant
Production coordinator
Set construction
Set Medic
Sound engineer
Stage manager (television)
Technical director (TD) (television)
Truck driver
Unit production manager
Video control broadcast engineering (television)
Visual effects editor
None of these folks are striking yet the WGA strike has them sitting at home not getting paid as well. Some A-list actors are donating money to the strikers and the hosts of late night comedy are doing a podcast to raise money for their writing staff but who is throwing a little charity to the truck drivers and key grips as their rent bills pile up?
Sure, Maher is an asshole. I’ve met him and he simply is but is he the bad guy in this? I guarantee the Real Time production assistant is thanking her lucky stars he has decided to resume things as well as the make-up artist who just had to borrow money from his uncle in order to make his car payment.
None of this is to say that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA should not be fighting for simple fairness in wages and a transparency when it comes to their work being presented on streaming platforms with opaque accounting. It is to at least acknowledge that when it comes to strikes, the pain trickles down and around to those with no stake. Someone needs to represent them and if that has to be Bill Maher, I’m pretty sure he can take the derision of the faithful.
