The Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) strike, the first in fifteen years, which began on 2nd May shows no immediate signs of abating and will surpass the 100-day mark this week. On 14th July, the historic work stoppage by the 11,500 strong union was joined on the picket line by the 160,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG -AFTRA), their first since 1980. The US$134 billion movie and television industry in America is now at a virtual standstill, as for the first time in 63 years, the actors and the screenwriters are on strike simultaneously.
The standoffs between the screenwriters and actors unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) which represent the old line studios – such as Paramount and Universal – and the new kids on the block, the tech giants – Amazon, Apple and Netflix – centre on ‘the usual suspects’ of collective bargaining agreements; ensuring living wages, and future job security for the workers.
The WGA strike vote received a 97.85 percent endorsement from its membership on the 28th April, if the unions failed to reach an agreement during their negotiations. The WGA has a history of active industrial action, having walked out on eight occasions over the past seven decades, including a 153 day strike in 1988. Many films and television programmes have been affected by the strike, forcing production to continue without writers, while others have been completely shut down. Projects with finished scripts have either been postponed or cancelled due to the union’s picket lines disrupting production. The ripple effects of these strikes are particularly harsh on the suppliers to the film and television industry such as drivers, set carpenters, costume dry cleaners, and caterers. The previous strike, which lasted 100 days from November 2007 to February 2008, cost the Los Angeles economy an estimated US$2.1 billion. A harsh reminder that in spite of serving as an entertainment escape for many of us, the industry is still, first and foremost, a business.
The SAG – AFTRA strike vote on 28th June was supported by 98 percent of its membership, as their contract renewal negotiations plummeted to a similar dead end result as those of the WGA / AMPTP. The union’s resolve appears to have caught the Hollywood executives and producers off guard as they have not had to deal with a major walkout by the actors since 1980, when the bone of contention was the burgeoning home video rentals and sales offshoot created by technology developments. In this instance, the actors union cited several issues in the negotiations for the renewal of their three-year deal, including economic fairness and residuals.
At a press conference on 13th July, actress Fran Drescher summed up the frustrations of the talks. “How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they are losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them,” the union president was quoted as saying by the New York Times. The union then added, “The entire business model has been changed ….This is a moment in history – a moment of truth. At some point, you have to say, ‘No, we’re not going to take this anymore.”
Ms Drescher was, of course, referring to the elephant already in the room – the streaming revolution – and the rapidly spreading influence of the other one nudging its way further into the room – artificial intelligence. The former’s influence on the computation of future residuals and the role of artificial intelligence (A.I.) on future job security for both the actors and screenwriters are the crux of the matter in the standstills between the two unions and the AMPTP. In the latter instance, the screenwriters are concerned that the studios will resort to A.I. to generate scripts, while the actors are justifiably worried that the fast developing technology will be used to create digital facsimiles of their likenesses and alter their performances without approval or compensation.
The hegemony held by the five major studios – Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures – over the film industry for the last fifty years by vertical integration of the entire process, from production to exhibition, has been turned on its head with the advent of tech companies Amazon, Apple and Netflix, and the streaming phenomenon, which accelerated in part, due to the Covid pandemic. The influence of A.I. on the future of the business is a major concern for the studios, who have seen network and cable television viewership plummet in recent times, and have resorted to massive employee layoffs in an effort to pay down massive debts. Hollywood studios have also started placing ads for high level strategic positions with A.I. responsibilities, whilst dangling very tempting six figure compensation packages. This move to embrace the new technology to stay relevant and be more cost efficient is a development which has not gone unnoticed by the actors and screenwriters unions.
The looming shadow cast by A. I. over job security in the entertainment industry is a stark reminder to all, that it will, sooner or later, effect every aspect of our lives, in one form or another. The eventual terms and conditions of the new collective bargaining agreements reached (hopefully soon) by the WGA and the SAG – AFTRA unions with the AMPTP with regards to the influence of A. I. on creativity content and compensation might indicate what the immediate future holds.
