Posts tagged television
A Big Year for Labor, But Not for Reality TV Workers
January 1, 2024 // Non-fiction field and story producers have cheered gains made by the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA in their deals with studios, but also have noticed that they’re one of the only departments unprotected by a union even on unionized sets.
Drew Barrymore’s Talk Show Is Returning — Without Her Striking Writers
September 12, 2023 // She added that she was approaching the new season, which premieres Sept. 18, “with an astute humility” — despite the optics of resuming her show during two strikes, which have called attention to inequitable working conditions in film and television.
As Hollywood strike drags on, Biden’s relationship with unions becomes complicated
September 6, 2023 // For example, in the 2020 election, labor unions contributed $27.5 million to Biden’s campaign while his opponent, former President Donald Trump, received less than $360,000, according to Open Secrets. The states with the largest concentration of union workers are hardline Democratic states, like Hawaii, New York, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey and California. In 2022, 10.1% of American wage and salary workers belonged to unions compared to 20.1%, in 1983, signifying a large drop in membership. But this hasn’t translated to a drop in popularity for unions, at least according to recent polls.
WGA Argues That Writer Pay Is ‘Falling Behind’ in Shift to Streaming
March 15, 2023 // The guild states that the percentage of writers earning minimum salaries has also increased from 33% to 49% since 2013. The report also notes that higher-paid writers are seeing their weekly pay decline as episode orders shrink and production schedules lengthen, because they are paid by the episode. Writers who make less than $400,000 a year on most types of shows are covered by “span protection,” which mandates that an episode fee cover no more than 2.4 weeks of work. The guild argues that the higher-paid writers should also enjoy that protection. The union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers exchanged proposals on Monday and are set to meet face-to-face next week. The current contract expires on May 1.