…this isn’t a thread about unions. Its a thread about the Writers Guild of America going on strike. Unions are tangentially related. But if all you are seeing throughout this thread is “mostly the uncritical view that everything that unions do is always just and right”, then you are missing a heck-of-alot-of-posts that are largely on topic.
This isn’t a balanced view of this dispute.
Because you can’t look at what the studios have put on the table and what the WGA have presented and come to the conclusion that the studios are “valuing efficiency.”
The studios need to come to the table and begin negotiating in good faith before we even get to this point. If this thread is looking “one-sided” to you, it isn’t because people hold “uncritical view that everything that unions do is always just and right.” Its because one side has fronted up to the negotiations and the other side isn’t. One side honoured the agreement not to talk to the media, and the other side leaked like a sieve.
And “best outcomes” is a relative thing here. The best outcome for the audience would be for the studios to give the writers everything that they want. Because the studios want to turn themselves into “content factories”. Let the algorithm decide what people want to watch. This isn’t just me being “pro-union” and all. They are on the record as saying this.
I think you are wrong here. But this isn’t the right thread to debate you. I’ve made my point (about the UAW, if that is what you are talking about here) over in the other thread.
But the idea that any union has “too much power”, when both corporations and the government have put significant effort into crushing the unions, is quite laughable.
No, the same factors always prevail. The studios want to produce the largest number of profitable films at the least cost, and all the participants want to maximize their own personal gains. The dynamics are always the same everywhere. The prevalence of mini-rooms, CGI, and digital production in the film industry is comparable to the introduction of automation in manufacturing.
I acknowledge this point. I’ve said at least twice now that I’m coming around to stronger support for the WGA side of this conflict than I had originally, which I might add no one has ever acknowledged, and instead I’m being cast as some sort of clueless union-busting plutocrat.
The power of unions varies tremendously across different cultural and legal regimes around the world, from dysfunctionally weak to domineering monsters. It’s not laughable to workers who become unemployed when plants shut down and move production elsewhere. I doubt that they find it funny at all.
…no. This isn’t what the studios want. Not at all.
What gives you this impression? Where are you getting this from?
No they aren’t the same. This isn’t correct. And I’ve just gone to great lengths to explain it.
No.
No it isn’t.
Not at all.
Not even one bit.
What on earth are you talking about?
I haven’t cast you that way at all. I’ve done no more than address the words that you have said here. All of my responses to you are on topic and, if I’m disagreeing with you, a direct rebuttal to anything you’ve said.
And I stand by everything I said. Even the examples of unions you used in that other thread don’t rise to the point of “domineering monsters.” But if you want to debate unions, then fine. I’ll see you in the union thread.
Perhaps stop putting all the blame on the unions for firing workers, shutting down plants, and moving production elsewhere. Those are company decisions. Not union ones. But again: the union thread is :: points :: right over there.
And I would ask you to stop misrepresenting my point. I don’t think it’s laughable when people lose their jobs. I think the idea that unions yield “too much power”, especially in the United States of today, is laughable.
Wow, that’s your idea of “balanced”?! Obviously, an actual balanced presentation would read more like the following:
Employers, by their very nature, are concerned only with company profits.
Unions, by their very nature, are concerned only with worker benefits.
We could also do a long-form version with a similar improvement in the balance:
Employers are concerned with producing a profitable product on time and on budget. The simple way to say this is that employers place a high value on efficiency.
Unions are concerned with maintaining a stable prosperous workplace with good jobs for their members. The simple way to say this is that unions place a high value on fair treatment.
But your attempt to combine the sympathetic presentation of the employer’s goals with the skeptical presentation of the union’s goals is poisoning the rhetorical well right from the get-go.
No, that’s just the way you choose to interpret it. The point is about the basic pragmatism of the employer’s goal. If employers had all the power, production would be maximally efficient, although workers’ conditions would often be horrible. If unions had all the power, production would either cease or would all be in China.
…and the thing is, I don’t even think this is accurate.
I’m not sure if calling the AMPTP the employer is correct. They are the industries “collective bargaining representative”, and nothing that they have put on the table shows they are concerned with producing a profitable product on time and budget, with a high value on efficiency. And the way the studios “employ” people are more akin to a contractor relationship than anything else.
And what the studios actually want is to maximize value for the shareholders. That can mean everything from having unprofitable movies (see Hollywood accounting) to allowing a strike to go on for months without negotiating or resolution, which is hardly efficient at all.
Looks pretty obvious that the point is about spinning the employer’s goal as “pragmatic”, a positive implication, while simultaneously spinning the union’s goal as self-interested, a negative implication.
An actual balanced presentation of the entities’ competing goals would look much more like one of the versions I suggested.
I suspect that we’re probably talking past each other in some way, but I’m talking about basic employer-employee dynamics that are just the same in these WGA negotiations as anywhere else, namely about money and job security, and the specific key issues are mainly those that I already mentioned. To wit:
Viewership-based residuals, artificial intelligence and minimum staffing for writers rooms are some of the issues that the Writers Guild of America wanted to tackle that went nowhere with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers … One of the other central issues at stake in the negotiations is the proliferation of so-called “mini rooms” that feature a handful of writers breaking stories before a formal series order, which is not always a guarantee. Writers Strike: The Issues Dividing the WGA and Hollywood Studios – The Hollywood Reporter
Also from the same link above:
… “The studios are more focused on greed than keeping people working,” observed one writer-producer when reading the proposals.
Some things never change.
You haven’t, but some have, while refusing to acknowledge my sympathies for the writers and implying that my support of unions, where it’s deserved, is a lie.
If they wanted to produce the largest number of profitable films at the least cost, then they would stop releasing blockbusters like Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible and instead follow the Blumhouse model.
But they aren’t doing that. The big studios are showing zero signs of switching things up. No, the studios don’t want to produce the largest number of profitable films at the least cost. That isn’t their motivation here.
OK, you’re really obfuscating things here. You’re showing us that the studios are engaging in extremely “creative” accounting tactics to maximize their retained earnings and minimize their revenue-sharing obligations. That’s despicable, and it only reinforces my basic proposition that the studios are out to make as much money as possible on every film.
No they don’t. And the other things that you may be advocating for are irrelevant seeing as I’m dealing with the one specific demand for minimum workers.
Setting minimum numbers of workers cannot guarantee against overwork issues, however putting in place protections specifically targeting them, can and does.
On this demand at least the union is cart-before-the-horse.
They want to make a profit. That is the ultimate purpose of pretty much any business.
They’ll do it by making a product that they can make a profit off (creative accounting accepted). If they are to survive they ultimately need bums on seats, eyeballs on screens and advertisers on board.
They’ll also (the successful ones at least) need to adapt to changing times and technologies. If that means having a temporary battle with unions in order to put in place new ways of working with less reliance on expensive writers then that is what they will do. Whenever new technologies and working practices have impacted industry and potentially reduced worker numbers and offered greater profitability you have a battle between the companies seeking to introduce them and unions seeking to moderate them.
The technology wins in the end. That will happen here as well.
I don’t blame the union for trying to preserve jobs and nor do I blame the studios for trying preserve their future profitability but there will only be one winner.
What I do think is that the writers union is not in a massively strong position in the long term. People aren’t feeling any great deprivation from their action and won’t do for quite some time. The studios know this and feel they can ride it out for longer and ultimately force greater concessions.
One of the key demands from both the WGA and SAG are that the studios open their books. That they aren’t opening the books, that the writers and the actors don’t even know if the TV show that they wrote for or starred in has made a profit, is important here.
Shareholder value is more significant than movie profits. That’s what is driving the decisions at the bigger studios, not profit.
Of course they do. 6 episodes, 6 scripts, 6 writers. If you cut the writing room in half, then each writer has to do twice as much work in the same amount of time. Because they aren’t stretching the deadlines.
They aren’t irrelevant. Because without minimums, the pipeline has gone. Without minimums, the creative process of breaking a story gets harder.
Setting minimum number of writers will accomplish exactly what the WGA have said it would. The system has worked for decades. Since the pandemic, when the studios decided to slash the writers rooms, the pathway for new writers to learn their craft has gone, opportunities for marginalized storytellers are drying up. This isn’t guesswork. I’m not speculating. This is actually happening. And if you want a cite? Go read through my posts up thread. It’s getting tiring to have to repeat myself.
I mean: that’s the ultimate goal of my business.
But its wrong to claim that this is the “ultimate purpose of pretty much any business.” Almost the entire tech-bro sector is full of start-ups whose goal it is to get millions of venture capital funding, grow the business to the point where they can sell it off, then profit off the proceeds of that sale. The product they are selling really isn’t the product. The business is the product. Doordash? Not profitable. Uber has only ever been proftiable when they fiddle the books. Blue Apron? Not profitable. Lyft? Not profitable. Peleton? Not profitable. Pinterest? Not profitable. Twitter? Not profitable. The list could go on and on and on and on.
The studios are in the same position that many media companies were in a few years ago. Gobbled up by vulture capitalists who look to extract value from the business without concern for sustainability, and when the value is gone, sell what’s left for spare parts.
What makes you think the goal is to “want to survive?”
Because there is nothing in the game plan that suggests this is what they want. If they want bums on seats, eyeballs on screens, and advertisers on board, then they would be moving to settle the writers strike as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, on Netflix, the TV Show Suits, that ended production in 2019, just finished its seventh week at the top of the Netflix streaming charts. The new stuff doesn’t cut it. Suits is a show that had a traditional writer’s room that hit the minimums: first season, 12 episodes, 8 writers. The formula works.
Writers aren’t expensive. And they can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. I posted an example of this up thread.
And what is it do you think they could be replaced by?
Which new technologies are you talking about? What working practices do you think should be changed? Can you be more specific and avoid the generalities? How will they generate more profits? Because this looks like hand-waving too me.
What technology? The studios haven’t put anything on the table. And there isn’t anything on the market that can come even close to replicating what even the worst writer in the WGA can do. Can you be more specific about what you think is going to “win in the end?”
If the studios defeat the unions here, the only winners will be the shareholders who cash out before the studios start to go bankrupt.
Which is why a television show that ended production in 2019 is what everyone is watching on Netflix right now. People want to see new stuff.
Do you remember this joke from the Hitchhikers Guide?
“I’m British, I know how to queue.”
Do you know the thing about writers in Hollywood? They know how to wait. They know how to survive off Big Boy’s and ramen. They know how to wait between writing jobs. “Riding it out” won’t gain the studios any concessions. If they want concessions, they will have to do it the old-fashioned way: at the negotiating table.
You are coming at this from completely the wrong direction. The only thing that guarantees against overwork, unpaid overtime etc. Is an agreement that limits those very things.
You can mandate that a six episode series needs six writers (which is clearly material-dependant, but lets leave that to one side for a moment) but that in no way guarantees that those six writers will not be exploited and overworked.
This absolutely does sound like someone saying that the writers are in some way owed a living as a writer.
So your point is that people are happy to watch old stuff? That’s great. There is so much of it out there that the lack of new stuff is not a problem and won’t be for ages.
And you merely assume that the number of writers involved in Suits has something to do with its popularity. I don’t buy it. I look back at some of the great TV produced and see no correlation between a mandated minimum numbers of writers and how good or popular something is. (and when it comes to comedy, less is often better)
You say Suits “hit” the minimum. Was that minimum imposed on them? or did they have a free choice on how many writers to employ?
I note that one of the towering achievements of TV “I Claudius” (12, one hour episodes) had a sum total of one (1) writer. Would that have been better with a larger team?
How does that conclusion follow? They still have access to new stuff that has never been seen before, why is that not top of the list?
Both sides will seek (and gain) concessions. The willingness of both sides to take a hard line will force that negotiation and compromise.
Hard to avoid generalities when you are making a general point.
The technology specific for the writers strike is the use of AI, plus any changes to working practices that come from that. Many which remain unforeseen.
If the use of AI ends up improving profitability for the company and gaining it a competitive advantage then it will win out regardless of any temporary concessions gained from this round of action. It would be merely delaying the inevitable. That has been true of any technological advancement.
And don’t ignore the “if” in my comment there, it is very important. I suspect AI will play a greater part in creative processes in the coming decades but quite how and where is up for a debate in another channel.
You asked the question why the WGA are asking for minimum staffing. I’ve explained to you why. Workload is just one of many different reasons why. And the numbers speak for themselves. 6 episodes? 6 writers. If you halve the amount of writers then they’ve got to do twice as much work in the same amount of time. That isn’t “coming at it the wrong way.” Thats answering your question.
Its a good thing that the WGA isn’t only asking for minimums then. Its like…they are asking for a whole lot of things. Including such basic things like “pay your writers on time.”
It doesn’t sound like that at all.
The point is that there is nothing new thats good enough to watch. So they are watching old stuff.
Which show did you look back at that had mandated minimum number of writers exactly? Can you name them? Because I need to test a theory.
That was a question you should have asked me before you claimed to have looked back at shows with “mandated minimums”.
How long did it take for Pulman to adapt Grave’s novel? Because if you aren’t working to deadline, then that changes the equation. We all know that the way shows are produced in America are different to how they are produced everywhere else.
They even still get decent residual checks in the UK! Would you support WGA writers getting some of the same benefits as they do in the UK? Or would you prefer writers in the UK stopped getting residuals?
If you wanted more recent examples of single-writer-shows in the US I could have given you examples if you asked me. JMS (who wrote the bulk of the episodes) with Babylon 5 and Taylor Sheridan with Yellowstone. And, well, many people argue that Yellowstone needs a writer’s room, but that’s by-the-by. It is likely the WGA will allow waivers for showrunners to be able to run their own show without a room. However, that would probably be dependent on the studios agreeing that the showrunner has to be a writer. Because a producer-showrunner with a single staff writer is uncharted territory, and prime for exploitation.
Correction: they want to watch good new stuff. The shows that the streamers have been producing lately are the product of the new ways of working that the studios have introduced. Smaller rooms, if they have a room at all. Leaving it to the showrunner to write the bulk of the scripts.
You claimed that “riding it out” would get the studio concessions. But the studios won’t get concessions until they come back to the negotiating table and start to finally bargain in good faith.
We’ve had this discussion before. There is no AI out there that’s ready to replace or even supplement the writers in the writers room. This isn’t going to happen. It isn’t on the table.
If they ever get to the point where AI could maybe handle writing a bit more than a page of dialogue without forgetting whether or not the dog is dead, then perhaps we could table this again. But at the moment? And for the foreseeable future? There really isn’t anything to discuss.
Fine, if the writers union want a solution that isn’t going to address the real problem then they are going about it the right way.
And I don’t think you are going to accept why that is an arse-backwards approach.
Nor do I accept the simplistic production-line mentality that you apply to a creative process.
Doubling the number of people involved does not necessarily translate into a halving of the time taken or an assurance of the quality of the output. Nor is it a guard against overwork or other exploitation of the employees.
I’m not aware of any shows that were operating under a union-mandated minimum number of writers. Yet still good quality shows get produced.
If there are a list of them that were created under those rules then do tell. I’d be interested to know and compare. I’m certainly aware of very good shows that were not created under the minimum numbers. You even admit as much later in thread.
I am asking now. Feel free to answer or not.
So you’d be fine with it only being one writer if the studio lengthened the deadline and ensured that the writer was not being overworked?
Sounds like you are tacitly admitting that the key issue is the working conditions rather than the number of writers.
I have no doubt that some shows may benefit from more writers, just as some would likely benefit from less. There should be freedom to do both. I just think the decision on that is better taken by the studio in consultation with the writers on a case-by-case basis rather than having it mandated by a union.
…but they are addressing the very real problems facing the industry. That what minimums will do.
It isn’t an arse-backward approach.
It isn’t a “simplistic production-line mentality.” And its a different take on the creative process. When it comes to creativity there isn’t a single way to do things. The magic of the writers room is that you’ve got a room full of people who get to bounce ideas off each other.
SPOILERS FOR THE LEFTOVERS ON THE LINK
Here’s a link to Vulture, where they discuss what happened in the writers room.
This isn’t a “production line.” Its a group of highly creative people working together to create something new and unique.
It isn’t “doubling the amount of people.” Its the normal amount of people needed to firstly break a story, write the scripts, then deliver the scripts on deadline.
What the studios are wanting to do (and in many cases, have already done) is to reduce the number of writers. I used “half” as an example. If six people work a normal amount of hours to deliver six scripts by October 1st, then three people will have to work more hours to deliver six scripts on the same date.
Thats just simple maths. The same amount of work has to be done. Its just there are less people to do it.
And they didn’t need too until the studios started to slash and burn the writers rooms. Which is why minimums are on the table.
You claimed you looked back at shows that had mandatory minimums. I don’t have to list anything. Its your claim. What shows did you look back on that had mandatory minimums? Or did you not actually “look back?”
I’ve answered already.
If the studios want to lengthen the deadlines, then they can bring that to the table when they return to the negotiations. But they aren’t going to do that. Because as I’ve already cited, the typical burn-rate per week on a show can be anywhere between 2 and 10 million dollars per week. A typical production can have anywhere between 2 and 500 staff. And the showrunner, who is also the head writer, is in charge of all of this. You stretch a deadline by a week and it could cost the studios maybe 10 million dollars. Delay it for two weeks? Double that.
It’s significantly cheaper (by orders of magnitude) just to hire the extra writers.
It’s more the case that you don’t understand how television productions work, the enormous scale at which they operate, and the fact that the writers are in a much better position to understand what they need in order to be able to do the job than either you or I.
The studios went ahead and started slashing rooms without consulting writers or the guild. The strike put a halt to that. If the studios want to go case-by-case, then they can bring it up during the negotiations, where it should have been bought up in the first place.
You are the one who is treating it as a simple work-rate calculation when it will never be that simple. Indeed there are plenty of instances where a process is not helped or sped-up by simply having more people working on it.
and you also say
If that isn’t treating the process like a production line then I don’t know what is.
No, I didn’t. I said.
The point being that, to the best of my knowledge, it was never a thing and yet great TV was produced. If you think that having those minimums imposed on great TV of the past would have made them better then go for it. Make that case.
So if the cost-benefits analysis is that stark, the studios will hire the extra resources anyway. You don’t need to mandate it from the off.
And if they can actually do it with fewer writers then they won’t.
I fail to see the benefit of mandating minimum numbers of writers.
If you do manadate minimums rather than putting in place working practice guidelines then you will still come up against deadline pushes and there is nothing to prevent those writers being exploited/overworked etc.
However, if you focus instead on putting in place the working guidelines then in the face of a deadline push the studio will hire the numbers they need in order to avoid the budget increase and also to remain within the scope of the working practice protections.