The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is on strike. The union representing about 11,500 writers of film, television, radio, and online media announced a walkout as their last three-year contract expired on May 1, explaining that “the survival of writing as a profession is at stake in this negotiation.”
At the center of the dispute are deteriorating working conditions stemming from the rise of streaming services and the boom in made-for-television production. The union’s proposal, sent to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, includes both traditional demands like higher minimum wages and unique claims concerning “viewership-based streaming residuals” and the regulation of artificial intelligence usage.
In a recent interview with the New Yorker, Alex O’Keefe, who worked on the hit FX show The Bear, complained, “I thought we would be treated more like collaborators on a product. It’s like an assembly line now.” Similarly, Stephanie McFarlane, a writer for BET+, told the New York Times that she just wants her “income to be a livable wage,” since “right now, it’s like a gig economy.”
Such statements have a long history in the film industry. Thinking of themselves as workers, screenwriters, actors, directors, and many others in the film industry stretching back to Hollywood’s Golden Age in the 1930s and ’40s have insisted that filmmaking is a form of labor and resisted attempts to categorize it just as entertainment or art. Screenwriter Philip Dunne, who worked...
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