The Writers Guild of America (WGA), representing 11,500 writers for film, television and other entertainment products, is on strike. This is the first writers’ strike – and the first in Hollywood – in fifteen years.

Why are writers on strike?

Streaming and its impact on the professional realm of screenwriting is at the center of controversy. The union says that despite the increase in TV series budgets, the share of screenwriters continues to decline.

The union says streaming services are hiring lower-level executives, known in the industry as “writer’s rooms,” making it harder to generate a steady stream of income for shorter periods. And the number of writers working for the guild’s minimum guaranteed income has grown from about a third to about half in the last decade.

At the same time, in this context, he further reduced fees, according to the report. And the planned annual salary increase under the current contract does not match the growth of inflation.

According to Variety, a show writer’s weekly minimum wage for the 2019-2020 season was $4,546. They work an average of 29 weeks on a $131,834 product per year, or an average of 20 weeks for $90,920. For a writer-producer, the amount is $6,967 per week. Streaming comedy-variety writers do not have a minimum financial security, according to the union.

The Film and TV Producers Guild, which represents Hollywood studios, streamers and production companies, says writers’ demands should be kept on staff and paid when there is no work. “If something needs to be written, writers are hired, but that requires writers to be hired, whether they are needed for the creative process or not,” the union’s position paper says.

The union also said that writers’ medical care, child care and retirement benefits are very different from the music production workers that writers compare themselves to.

How did we get here?

Months of negotiations failed to bridge the significant gap between the writers and the Film and Television Producers Guild. Negotiations often drag on for hours or days after the current contract expires. In this case, they expired just a few hours before the most recent contract expired last Monday evening. By then, the writers, who had voted overwhelmingly to allow their leaders to go on strike, had already begun preparing posters for their protests, which began on Tuesday.

The Motion Picture and Television Producers Union said it offered “generous allowances” to screenwriters, including the highest first-year contract pay increase in more than 25 years, as well as creating a new salary tier. This will mean a new, higher minimum guaranteed income for mid-level writers. The union said it was ready to improve its proposal, but the sponsors were asking for much more than the companies were willing to offer. Thus, negotiations broke down just a few hours before the expiration of the current contract.

Who is directly affected by this?

Late-night talk shows, which depend heavily on the current events of the day, were the first to feel the effects of the strike. The show has been de facto at the forefront of previous writers’ strikes. NBC “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC and CBS, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert immediately went on hiatus and is airing reruns. James Corden’s farewell party Thursday night on The Late Late Show was a hit.

For now, plans for the upcoming award ceremonies remain in place, but they could easily collapse.

How TV shows and movies are affected

The effect of the strike on the series may only be revealed much later. A notable impact on the film’s release schedule could be delayed even further.

Shows where writers have begun work on future seasons, including Showtime’s The Yellow Vests, are now on hiatus and will have to scramble after the strike to meet the schedule.

Work on completed scripts can continue as planned (no last-minute editing). By and large, other Hollywood unions, including the actors’ and directors’ unions, whose contracts with the Film and Television Producers Union are expiring in the coming months, are prohibited by their contracts from participating in the current strike and must continue to work. although both members and leaders expressed solidarity with the WGA.

Depending on their consumption patterns, many viewers, whether on television or in movies, may not notice the effects of a strike long after it has ended. The menu on Netflix and Amazon Prime won’t change next week, but since this is the first writers’ strike in the streaming era, there’s no precedent for what the consequences will be in a few months.

During the latest strike, when television and cable networks with fixed seasonal schedules still dominated, many shows, including CSI and Grey’s Anatomy, cut their seasons.

And the screenwriters?

Stopping work would mean a big financial loss for the writers, though many say it’s worth it to deal with dwindling daily income.

Writers’ strike rules do not allow members to make new deals, make new offers, or submit new scripts. They are allowed to accept payment for any work that has already been submitted.

What happened to previous strikes?

The writers went on strike six times, more than any other group in Hollywood.

The first one took place in 1960. It was a Writers Guild strike that lasted almost five months. Strikes followed in 1973, 1981 and 1985. The longest break in work, which lasted exactly five months, occurred in 1988.

The 2007–2008 strike was called off after three months. Among the major concessions the writers won were the requirement for nascent streaming shows to hire union writers if their budgets were large enough. This was the harbinger of almost every labor struggle in the entertainment industry in the years to come.

Source: Associated Press.