Which is fine and totally admirable. Advocating for protections that guard against exploitation and overwork is exactly the right thing to do and I’ve said so consistently.
Unions are great for doing that.
I still stand by that, they are best placed to make that ultimate decision but I also agree that companies must be making those decisions within a framework of regulations to promote the right behaviours. I don’t think minimum staffing levels do that.
Contrary to popular belief I’m neither anti-union nor am I for the freedom of businesses to behave however they want.
It’s simplified when we view this as an anonymized business discussion.
The purchaser of services has a say in how many people are used and how the work is done.
The provider of services has a say in how many people are used and how the work is done.
The purchaser wants the fewest people and the lowest cost for receiving satisfactory service.
The provider wants the most people and highest cost for providing satisfactory service.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a producer negotiating for script writing services or a homeowner negotiating with their landscaper. There is no ultimate decision because it has to be an agreement of two parties, and BOTH can say yes or no.
I honestly don’t follow what you are saying or what you are proposing.
My car windscreen is being replaced today. I have no opinion on how many people should be used to carry out that task, nor do I think it is reasonable for me to dictate how many should be used.
Of course I could refuse to do business with them if they don’t employ six people to do it but…why would I make that a condition?
I’m currently towards the end of a major industrial construction project. Big figures, very complicated, massive safety and quality implications if things go wrong.
At no point have I, as the purchaser of services, dictated how many people are to be employed to accomplish this. At no point in the countless number of projects I’ve been involved with has that subject ever come up.
The producers are purchasing services from the writers. The writers want to dictate how many writers are required for a job. The producers want to dictate how many writers are required for a job.
You then said:
And have indicated over and over that it is the producers, the people looking to pay people to provide services who are best placed to decide how many writers are needed. But hey, if:
Maybe we should just let the writers decide how many writers are to be employed to write a script.
You might not make that condition, given those specifics. But what if you want your house painted over the weekend? You might want to save money by insisting that a company send only three people and get the job done. Mary’s Housepainting Company might insist on your hiring six people, because they believe that’s the number it takes to do a good job. If you want to hire MHC, you have to agree to their terms. It doesn’t matter if you think the job can be done by three people.
We can all come up with a million examples in which it makes sense, or doesn’t make sense, to insist on a certain number of folks. The question isn’t even whether we think writers’ rooms are one of those situations. The question is whether WGA thinks that, and whether ATMPTWCQJ or whatever the studio org is called thinks that, and what agreement they’ll reach.
With an example like this and with the wedding band, the difference is that you could decide to hire different painting crews and wedding bands to suit your needs. There’s no regulatory board or union which says a house painting crew must have a minimum X painters and a wedding band must have a minimum of Y musicians. If you like Mary’s painting crew, you hire them. If you like Joe’s painting crew, you hire them. The number of people is not necessarily relevant to the quality of the job they produce or the quality of the job you need. You may prefer to hire a crew of 2 experienced painters who do excellent work versus 6 HS kids who slap paint everywhere. If you just have a shed to paint, a HS kid is fine. You may prefer to hire a 1 guy with a guitar for your wedding versus a 10-piece band. You may prefer to hire a 4-piece band with experienced musicians which is the same price as a 10-piece band of HS kids banging around. The number of people performing the job is not a fixed number in these cases and wouldn’t need to be. Rather, the crew that does the job varies with number and experience according to what you need and are willing to pay.
If I want my house painting over the weekend I would leave it completely up to the person employing the painters as to how they choose to staff that job.
I would never dream having any opinion on how many people are needed to get it done, nor stipulating it as part of a contract.
But the analogy doesn’t hold because we are talking about writers employed by the studio in order to carry out a task for the studio.
Let’s say I had a large estate and employed multiple painters and decorators. They are members of a union. I’d be an idiot to agree to a union demand that I have to allocate them in a certain way. My employees, my choice.
MHC is the employer of the painters, the studio is the employer of the writers. In both cases the employer is best placed to say how they deploy their resources.
MHC employs the painters, the painter’s union is saying that they have to use 6 people to paint my house. I say that MHC should retain absolute power to decide how many they use and would be foolish to agree with the union that a minimum number is needed.
That’s often the case. The person running the company may have never done all the jobs that the company does. I would guess that’s true in just about every company with more than 1 person. They may have no idea everything that is involved. But they have employed people to do those jobs and have the experience to know what is required.
With studios and production companies, even though the heads of those can’t write scripts, use cameras, build sets, etc., they do have experience with putting together productions. If they hire the wrong people, not enough people, cheap out on equipment, then their production is bad and they go out of business. If they spend too much on people and splurge on equipment, they don’t make enough profit and they go out of business. A successful production company will find the sweet spot in how much they can spend so that their production is profitable (just like every business).
The analogy is broken and doesn’t capture either side very well.
The request for minimum writer levels is not a generic request for more writers in the writing room. It is a request to address the mini-room practice. @wolfpup posted a Variety article that does a good job explaining what are mini-rooms, when they are used, and what the writer’s concerns are.
To correct the analogy, the union painters go to the painting companies and say: “It’s not fair. For some jobs you hire 8 people to paint 8 houses and you give them 10 weeks to do it. For other jobs you hire 2 people to paint 2 houses, but they only get 2 weeks to finish. Plus those 2 people got paid less and they have to find another contract in 2 weeks.” Then the painters go on to say “All of us painters have decided we aren’t going to paint any more houses until we agree that all contracts are staffed for 10 people-weeks per house.”
I agree that specifying minimum staffing isn’t typically the most direct way to addressing a problem, but I think it is in the case of mini-rooms. It’s also a starting position. Presumably they will find some middle ground – like mini-rooms can’t just pay scale and they have to hire a third writer.
We got way further in the weeds on this analogy than I expected–I was only addressing the idea that I’d ever want to determine how many workers were on a job. In my analogy, Mary’s Painting Company (I shoulda called it William’s Gardening Agency) is the union. But that was clearly lost, and I’m not sure it’s worth trying to salvage the analogy.
Suffice it to say, it’s obvious that in the real world, sometimes I want to pay money for a service AND determine how many workers I have, and sometimes the workers, represented by an organization of some sort, want to disagree with me on the matter. That’s incontrovertible without denying the existence of the current strike. I think it’s silly to say that there’s some high principle that means WGA’s position is flawed from the outset, especially if someone’s suggesting that a contract including their agreement should be outside the bounds of legal contracts or whatever. If you think that in this case their position is wrong, it’s worth talking about why it’s wrong in this case.