Posts tagged Writers Guild of America
Actors guild authorizes strike with contract set to expire at end of month
June 7, 2023 // SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement that some of the union's key concerns are that "inflation, dwindling residuals due to streaming, and generative AI all threaten actors' ability to earn a livelihood if our contracts are not adapted to reflect the new realities." Hollywood writers are currently striking after the Writers Guild of America and ATPMP could not agree on a new contract. WGA officials have also cited AI and a lack of residuals brought about by the streaming era as major sticking points. That strike began on May 2 and could last for months.
Are Unionized Gig Workers The Future Of Work?
June 2, 2023 // Additionally, some unions—because of a lack of resources—aren’t able to take the most direct approach to helping gig workers. “Unfortunately, right now there are some unions that have taken a ‘strategic’ approach of trying to work with the companies and become their labor partners,” says Dryburgh. “In May 2021, they tried getting a law passed in NYC that would provide Independent Drivers Guild and Transport Workers Unions fees for representing workers that would come from fares and delivery fees. The problem with these laws is that while they provide immediate benefits to workers, they create these carveouts that prevent app-based workers from being classified as employees. These kinds of deals can have irreparable consequences for the rest of the labor movement. If the new standard of whether you are an employee depends if you get your job through an app, all W2 employees are in trouble.”
Predawn Picket Lines Help Writers Disrupt Studio Productions
May 30, 2023 // But production shutdowns are affecting not only the studios. Crews and other workers — like drivers, set designers, caterers — lose paychecks. And if the shutdowns accumulate and more people are unable to work, some wonder whether the writers will begin to erode the current good will from other workers. Lindsay Dougherty is the lead organizer of Local 399, the Teamsters’ Los Angeles division, which represents more than 6,000 movie workers, from the truck drivers the writers are trying to turn away to casting directors, location managers and animal trainers. A second-generation Teamster, Ms. Dougherty is one of the union’s few female leaders. Her copious tattoos, including one of the former Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, and her frequently profane speech have made her a bit of a celebrity to the writers during the strike. And she said the solidarity with the writers remained strong. “I think collectively, we’re all on the same page in that streaming has dramatically changed the industry,” Ms. Dougherty said in an interview. “And these tech companies that we’re bargaining with, during the last writers’ strike — Amazon, Apple, Netflix — they weren’t even part of the conversation.”
Changing institutional culture from the inside out: why more and more US museum workers are forming unions
May 19, 2023 // Organising efforts at Storm King, the PMA, the Hispanic Society and elsewhere reflect a trend that has been growing in the US art and heritage sector over the course of the past five years and accelerated with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers at more than 20 institutions have formed a union since 2020 or are actively in negotiations for their first contract, including the Jewish Museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Mass Moca in Massachusetts. In March, after 16 months of negotiations, workers at the Whitney Museum of American Art, who had formed a union in spring 2021, ratified their first contract. State of the unions: why US museum workers are mobilising against their employers Tom Seymour The issues prompting workers to form unions across the country and across a broad range of industry sectors are remarkably consistent: wages, benefits and working conditions. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of wage and salary workers who belonged to a union in 2022 was 14.3 million, a 1.9% increase on 2021.
WGA Strike: Disney Using “Union-Busting Tactics,” Guild Says; Mouse House, HBO, CBS Demand Showrunners Work Despite Labor Action – Update
May 8, 2023 // “Under the National Labor Relations Act, the WGA is not permitted to interfere with an employer’s right to designate employees to perform certain supervisory functions,” the correspondence, with accompanying dos and dont’s, added. “If you fail to provide contracted services due to the strike, HBO/HBO Max will not be obliged to continue your salary,” it went on to say in the FAQ portion of the letter. And then, perhaps even more so that calling guild contract interpretations “misleading,” there was the kicker: “Further, if production is interrupted by the strike, even if you offer to continue to work, HBO/HBO Max will not be obliged to continue your salary, nor the salary of the cast and crew.” Disney shot out a similar letter with the same iron fist in a velvet-glove tone.
WGA Strike Shuts Down ‘Billions’ Amid Skirmishes, Cries Of “Scabs” Outside NYC Studio; Teamsters Refuse To Cross Pickets At ‘American Horror Story’ Filming
May 8, 2023 // Back in New York City, there also were smaller skirmishes in Brooklyn, with handfuls of picketers briefly surrounding and blocking production workers as they wheeled plastic bins filled with pieces of furniture across a cobbled street. “This is the point of a picket line,” one protestor pleaded with a middle-age woman trying to steer a bin around him with help from a private security guard. She eventually slipped through, with grudging assent from the picketers and the same “scab” refrain following her. The WGA said Wednesday that stagehands and truckers represented by IATSE and the Teamsters did not cross a picket line at another production facility, Silvercup Studios, in Queens, while protesters were on site there. It added that traffic in and out resumed once the protestors departed, in what union representatives called a work slowdown, not a full shutdown, at the site.
Writers Guild Issues Rules for Potential Strike: Writing, Pitching and Negotiating for Work Are Barred
April 27, 2023 // Writers are instructed to “inform the Guild of the name of any writer you have reason to believe is engaged in scab writing or other strikebreaking activity.” Writers are obligated to picket as assigned unless they have an accepted medical exception, personal circumstance or other employment. Writers Guild Issues Rules for Potential Strike: Writing, Pitching and Negotiating for Work Are Barred
Hollywood writers vote on whether to give negotiators power to call strike
April 17, 2023 // The strike authorization vote is meant to turn up the heat on companies such as Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) and Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and convince them to raise the pay for writers, who say their compensation has suffered because of the streaming revolution, which resulted in shorter TV seasons and smaller residual payments.
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.
How to Start a Union at Your Company
April 8, 2022 //