Factually! with Adam Conover - The Writers Guild and the Future of American Labor with David Goodman

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

Comedy writer and WGA West President David Goodman joins Adam for a deep dive into one of the most interesting labor unions in the country - the Writers Guild of America. They also cover what it's like when your boss is Seth MacFarlane and a member of your union, how solidarity powers the Guild's negotiations, and how the Guild is fighting back against the corporate consolidation that's transforming the entertainment industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, I got to confess, I have always been a sucker for Japanese treats. I love going down a little Tokyo, heading to a convenience store, and grabbing all those brightly colored, fun-packaged boxes off of the shelf. But you know what? I don't get the chance to go down there as often as I would like to. And that is why I am so thrilled that Bokksu, a Japanese snack subscription box, chose to sponsor this episode. What's gotten me so excited about Bokksu is that these aren't just your run-of-the-mill grocery store finds. Each box comes packed with 20 unique snacks that you can only find in Japan itself.

Plus, they throw in a handy guide filled with info about each snack and about Japanese culture. And let me tell you something, you are going to need that guide because this box comes with a lot of snacks. I just got this one today, direct from Bokksu, and look at all of these things. We got some sort of seaweed snack here. We've got a buttercream cookie. We've got a dolce. I don't, I'm going to have to read the guide to figure out what this one is. It looks like some sort of sponge cake. Oh my gosh. This one is, I think it's some kind of maybe fried banana chip. Let's try it out and see. Is that what it is? Nope, it's not banana. Maybe it's a cassava potato chip. I should have read the guide. Ah, here they are. Iburigako smoky chips. Potato

chips made with rice flour, providing a lighter texture and satisfying crunch. Oh my gosh, this is so much fun. You got to get one of these for themselves and get this for the month of March. Bokksu has a limited edition cherry blossom box and 12 month subscribers get a free kimono style robe and get this while you're wearing your new duds, learning fascinating things about your tasty snacks. You can also rest assured that you have helped to support small family run businesses in Japan because Bokksu works with 200 plus small makers to get their snacks delivered straight to your door.

So if all of that sounds good, if you want a big box of delicious snacks like this for yourself, use the code factually for $15 off your first order at Bokksu.com. That's code factually for $15 off your first order on Bokksu.com. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's alright. Yeah, that's okay. I don't know anything. Hello, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. And, you know, we've talked about labor unions on this show before in my episode with Stephen Greenhouse a month or two ago. Really recommend that one if you want an intro to the topic. But today I want to talk about the labor union that I am a member of. See, back in 2007, you might remember there was a writer's strike. You might remember this. Hollywood writers were on the picket lines.

Remember that? All the late night shows went dark. Conan started spinning his ring on his desk. And all your favorite TV shows got like weird and bad for like a season or two. If you wondered why like the second season of Friday Night Lights sucked so much, like it seemed like all the episodes are kind of half written and they only really shot two thirds of the season. Well, it's because the strike happened in the middle of the writing process. So that's exactly what happened. because the strike happened in the middle of the writing process, so that's exactly what happened. Now, look, sure, a couple of our nightly entertainments got a little bit weirder for a few months, but when I joined the Writers Guild, which I know sounds like it's from the Middle Ages, but I swear it is from this year in America, it's the Writers Guild of America,

I realized that that strike was worth it, because even though the idea of a bunch of TV writers on strike sounds weird, the truth is that they were fighting and continue to fight for the same respect and fair treatment as all workers are. And in fact, I think the WGA might just serve as an example for the way forward for labor in this country. See, the Guild is not a prototypical union. We're not hardhat guys in factories punching clocks and going to play cards at the union hall. But the industry we're in is clearly massively profitable. And the reason it is is because of the labor of a relatively small group of people. The people who literally make the things that the entire rest of the business make money off of. So just as the workers who build your car deserve a fair share of the profits

from selling that car, so does the writer whose work turned into a movie that earned $100 million or the team of writers who built a beloved informational comedy show on a channel that used to be Court TV deserve their fair share as well. Especially those people, I think. Since the Guild started in 1933, writers have gone on strike to demand our fair share time and time again in 1952, 1960, 1973, and three times in the 80s, not to mention 2007. These strikes ensured that writers earned fair wages and royalties from their very lucrative work, but also the basic protections all workers need, like health care. And the Guild is still fighting for protections as basic as paid family leave. And through those years, the Guild has been there to make sure that as the entertainment industry shifts, whether to VHS, cable, or streaming,

or whatever comes next, VR, direct-to-brain, hyper-immersive, wavelength transmission, all right? The point is, the Guild is there to ensure that the people who come up with that entertainment aren't left behind in the wheels of capitalism. The Guild demonstrates how powerful it can be when a union is willing and able to adapt with a rapidly changing industry. And here's another example of how the Writers Guild has something to say about labor in America today.

We live in a world now in which worker organizing seems harder than ever, right? Gig economy workers, telecommuting programmers, the dude who brings you your DoorDash from Chipotle. It's often hard to imagine how individual workers who never have a reason to even talk to their peers might organize, right? Well, much like them, writers predominantly work alone, from gig to gig, banging away on laptops in seclusion. Yet somehow, they manage to create a union whose solidarity is so strong, it's able to take on some of the most powerful companies in America. That's right, I'm not talking about Amazon or Standard Oil. I'm talking about Disney. The Writers Guild goes toe-to-toe

with the evil empire and occasionally even wins a round. So to talk about how they did it and what their example means to the future of labor and the entertainment industry, my guest today is Writers Guild West President David Goodman. But of course, he's not just a Guild member, he's also a writer. He's worked on Family Guy, Star Trek Enterprise, and my personal favorite, The Golden Girls. Please welcome David Goodman. my personal favorite, the Golden Girls. Please welcome David Goodman.

I mean, we did a really great episode a couple months ago with a writer named Stephen Greenhouse about, like, who's a journalist who's written about, like, the history of, like, unions, et cetera, et cetera. So I see this as a really good book called Beaten Down, Worked Up. Check it out. Yeah. And so I think it's like, this is like a little bit of a follow-up

now we're talking to an actual union boss. Do you conceive talking to an actual union person, an actual union boss. Do you conceive of yourself as a union boss? You know, it was funny what during my reelection, one of the people running against me compared me to Jimmy Hoffa. And the Irishman was about to come out. Yeah, it was all seem related. I know I do not out. Yeah, it all seemed related. No, I do not. I mean, it's interesting.

I think that the thing about being president of the union, of this union, is you have no actual power. How so? I'm the spokesman for the guild. We can't do anything unless the members are on board. And so this idea that, that, that I could be a boss, a union boss and tell everybody what we're doing and why we're, what we're doing and they don't have a choice. I mean, that's not our guild. Uh, I, I can't do anything unless the members are on board. So part of – I think part – the only thing that I do along with staff and the rest of the leadership is educate, is like, look, we've seen this problem.

We think it's related to this. We think we could do something about it. But unions are often portrayed in the press as telling the workers what to do and limiting what the workers – and like issuing edicts and things like that. And that's, in your view, a misconception. Completely. I mean, I think that all unions sort of begin with a group of people, of workers, whatever industry they're in, deciding that they're going to get together and say, our interests are with each other, our power is with each other, and we're going to try and make our lives better. I mean, the thing about what's so interesting about a union, you know, that idea of a union, that a union is out for itself in some ways,

is ridiculous. It doesn't make a profit. Nobody, all the leaders in our union are volunteers. I mean, the amount of time that I spend as president of the guild, I'm not getting a dime. So I don't have any interest other than improving the lives of our members and making sure they're being fairly compensated and treated well. And so that's, but because you're up against giant corporate interests, and that is, again, true with any union in any industry, they have an enormous advantage because they can paint you the way they paint themselves, you know, the way they are, which is, in some

cases, they don't tell the truth. They are out for themselves. They are interested only in profit. And so because whatever leverage we have, being the workers, again, whatever industry that is, the real bosses, the real employers are going to say they're bad. They're saying we're bad, but they're just as bad. Yeah.

And it's not true. And you see that with unions across the country. You see that pattern of messaging from the corporations versus what you have in the unions themselves. But you're a writer yourself, right? Yes. What are you writing right now? What are you working on right now? I currently write for a show called The Orville which is i've heard of this show have you oh

that's good i think a lot of people haven't i oh really i find that show very popular oh okay good in fact i remember when that show came out and the new star trek came out and uh i wanted to see like my cousins in michigan who are like that's a good way to test i think every writer's got like that you go visit your family for the holidays somewhere yeah yeah and they were like i like i was like watching the new star trek i was like you like that they're like no we don't like that show the orville that's a really good show and i was like okay then it's it's working you know yeah you know i've worked uh with seth mcfarland for more for seth mcfarland for a very long time i was on family guide for a number of years i ran ran it with Seth for about six years and worked there after I ran it.

And then I've done a lot of animation. I started on The Golden Girls was my first job. I love The Golden Girls. Yeah, it was a good show. When that show's in reruns, I'm still like, I watch it. I'm like, the jokes are so good. It really is like up there with friends or like any other sort of like super funny, love the characters, incredible show.

It was a great, great group of actresses. Yeah. Just great. Like you don't, I don't know if we've ever seen any, we'll ever see a talent like that again in a group on a show. And then the writers, yeah, were writing really funny jokes. And, you know, I was very fortunate to have that as my first job. Also the first job I was fired from. So that's also.

Wow. How do you get fired from the Golden Girls? Well. Only if it's a good story. It's not. No. You know, basically we were hired by one group of writers who ran the show. They left, a new, a new showrunner came in.

Regime change. Regime change. Yeah. And 50% our fault, 50% his fault. We were, we didn't quite, I had a partner at the time and I don't think we quite figured out how to work for him fast enough. And he, he didn't really give us a chance. I'm still waiting for the tell-all oral history of golden girls vulture should get on it um but how do you manage being like so the you know the leadership of the union like i think all unions should aspire to is like run by the members like right and and

you're an active member you're not paid You're just another member who has been elected. How do you do that while you're still a full-time comedy writer? Yeah, it's not easy. I think it's important to state that the day-to-day managing of the Guild is done by paid staff. managing of the guild is done by paid staff. The guild union leadership, me and other writers who are elected to the board of directors and the other officer positions, obviously we decide the route that the guild is going to take. We communicate with the members. We have a help of a very hard-working

paid staff so it's not like it's not like a nine-to-five job that i'm doing while i'm also being a comedy writer uh on the other hand we've been engaged in some uh important campaigns and it has been very time-consuming and tiring and i am fortunate that set, my boss, is a very supportive member of the guild. And he, you know, will cut me a little slack here and there. But I'm still doing that job. Right. Yeah, it's tiring. That's really funny, though, for like him, I don't know, for your boss to be a member of the union that you report to a member, right?

Right. And he has working for him the president of the of the guild it's like a funny flip it is a funny flip you know and that's the other thing too i mean i think that um our our membership has a sort of this wide range of uh uh you know um careers and backgrounds i mean the, the kind of writing, you know, obviously there are members of the Guild who are movie writers, there are members of the Guild who are game show writers, there are members of the Guild sitcom drama. Some who are showrunners, some who have just gotten their first gig.

You know, that's probably the hardest piece of our union is the managing of all the disparate uh careers that people have and the disparate priorities that each members have and then finding the common the commonality trying to find that commonality the things that affect all of us that we can all get behind how do you think the guild like relates to the labor movement generally? Because my first impression was, hey, this is one of the weirdest unions in the country. It's all these people writing for TV. It's a very weird kind of work.

A lot of people see it as just like a celebrity aspect to it, et cetera. But then the longer I've been in it, the more I'm like, oh, wait, the same dynamics are at play here as in other businesses where you've got companies consolidating real corporate power. They want to drive wages down, et cetera. I don't know. How do you how is it similar? How is it different? Well, it's similar in what you just said, which is we work for large corporations. They are looking in every way possible to pay us as little as possible.

It's not personal. That helps their profit. Yeah. They're just machines that are built to do that. Absolutely. It's not personal at all. They want to pay their employees as little as they can get away with. Right.

their employees as little as they can get away with. Right. So the union that we have, we're fortunate in our business that you really can't do anything without writers. Even, you know, just the sort of the lie of reality television. I mean, I watched The Bachelor bachelor which i think is just a great show i really think it's a great it's an incredible production incredible production but somebody's writing some stuff there oh yeah oh yeah you know but it's i i love that show they're creatively conceiving of it and yeah yeah and like they're doing outlines they're they're making pdfs

to send each other here's what's going to happen in this episode for sure right so we don't have any guild coverage of those shows but but what i'm saying is it's true the the truth of what i'm saying which is you can't really do any kind of television without writers any kind of movies without you without writers you just can't uh documentaries everything requires the head of a writer yeah and um so that gives us our leverage and that gives us our power and that's that's whatever power we have comes from that and that's similar to other uh industries um garment workers and and uh automobile workers and automobile workers and teachers. You can't make a car without the people building the car. Teachers, you know, teachers.

All the unions have people in them who they, in one way or another, are required. I think that we may have a little more leverage because in some of those other professions, it may be easier to replace people on an automobile assembly line. Not completely easy. And so that's the similar thing, where we're a required labor force and we're a skilled labor force. And also, it's different, I think. I think the way it's different is, you know, when in a lot of other professions, you have people who are, you know, they've just hired, they're just, they just need a job to support. Deciding you're going to be a writer, deciding you're going to pursue that career is different than taking a job in an automobile factory. you even get your first job right as opposed to other unions are jobs where someone hey uh like

for instance we've got um hotel hospitality unions here here in la of of people who like clean hotels and stuff and that's like a that's that's more a much more entry level right i mean it's and so difficult work but yeah so and so we're different also because finding the solidarity of a union, that's always the hardest thing is making workers understand that their interests lie with the union. And I think when everybody's doing the same job, although I wouldn't say it's easier, it's clearer. Yeah. You know, we're all doing this job. We're all working 18 hours a day. That's crazy. We're not getting weekends off. That's crazy. We're getting paid 50 cents an hour. That's crazy. Whatever that, with writers, as you just said, you work 10 years to break, or however many years it took you to break in.

You really feel like you did it mostly by yourself. You may have had mentors. You may have had people who facilitated and gave you the first break. But you were doing that work. And then you are in that career alone, especially if you're, I think, a movie writer. I think that a movie writer really is on their own, maybe with the help of an agent or a manager, but maybe they knew a producer. But for the most part, that's a real solitary thing. And then to get to say to that person,

your interests lie with this other group of writers can be hard and I think legitimately hard to convince that person that this union is about them too. Many feature writers, I think, see that, see it easily, see the health insurance, see the residuals and all that. But, you know, so when you, and I'm not just singling out feature writers, I have plenty of television writers, plenty of other writers who just have to be convinced that their interests lie with the group and that what the group is doing affects them or that the sacrifice they may be asked to make is going to help them. Or it may not help them, but they sort of see, in general, the strength of the union helps them. Yeah. So they were going to, you know, so that, I think, is the harder thing.

How was- That makes a difference from other unions. Well, it does, it makes a difference from some unions, but not all. Exactly. And the interesting question for me is how that solidarity was initially built, like when the union started and how it's maintained, because when you look at, for instance, you know, people will talk about like Uber driver unions. Right. And, you know, I remember like a year or two ago in LA, a bunch of

rideshare drivers, like try to have a one day strike, you know, and the problem was like, they had no way to communicate with the other Uber and Lyft drivers. Right. And tell them that they were doing it. So like whichever ones were like on the same message board, they all went to LAX and like, you know, held up their signs. Um, and I knew about it. So I, Hey, I'm not going to take an Uber and Lyft that day, but, um, you know, everybody else, all everyone else who just has the app is just opening it and doing it. And I can imagine, you know, in a pre union era of, of movie writers, Hey, we're all just getting called up by the producers. None of us know each other.

We don't work together. We're all working separately. There's that feeling of, hey, if I leave my job, there's always someone willing to take my place. There's a line, a million of people behind me who would love to do this work. So how does that create that solidarity? Well, I mean mean it was different when the union started the union started in the 30s uh writers were under contract to studios and they were seeing each other on the studio a lot they would be they would be going into work and working

nine to five and and uh they would be being handed uh whatever script the studio wanted them to work on and so like a big like a big movie script boiler room, just like, get on this one. Yeah. Essentially. And so, I mean, you know, it was also the 1930s was the time of the Great Depression and there was the rise of the radical left.

Communism was probably the most popular in the 1930s in america than it ever was or would be yeah and so uh radical left writers really organized this union and it was interesting that the big issue for writers that really formed it was the beginning of the union was credit that the studios would assign credit to whoever they wanted. Like literally who's in the credits. Yeah.

Literally written by. Yeah. And so, and they could have five writers working on a movie, 50 or 50 writer, however many writers they had working on a movie. And the, usually the studio would just,

just look at the last script that was written and say, that's the writer of the movie. And what was really interesting, too, was that writers before the union got to determine credit, and that was really the first big fight, was that the Screenwriters Guild, as it was called then, getting together and demanding collective bargaining and getting the right to determine credit. Before that, individual writers sort of had these strategies to be the last guy who does the right. And credit was really important. It was even, and what's so interesting about it, it's really kind of a pure thing at the time because it didn't mean more money. Like this was, again, before residuals, before. You just want to see your name on it.

And the very sort of practical thing of if you wrote Gone with the Wind, then you'd probably get another job. Yeah, right. And so it was those two things. And it was about your career. But it was also the purity of credit for your creation, along with the practical economic thing of i want my name on the movie that i created uh because that's going to help my career um then over time and it was a slow build and it was tough but it was a slow build of then starting to demand what are called residuals, payment for reuse of movies.

And that really, really came into play in the 50s when television started and they were starting to play movies on television. And writers were starting to work in television. And then this idea of the rerun, which was, again, kind of a relatively new thing in, you know, I mean, the rerun was new at one point. Yeah. And so that, that idea that you would be compensated again, if your work was reused, and that became part of our, our contract as well. And, and, you know know then the period of the 50s was um the time of the blacklist which is if anybody needs to know was the period when if you were thought to be a communist uh you couldn't get work yeah and uh 10 writers the hollywood 10, were questioned in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. In front of Joe McCarthy's committee.

And they went to jail. And these were also people who were also the leadership of the Writers Guild. A lot of them were the people who helped form the Writers Guild, Dalton Trumbo and others there. And there's an interesting thing there as well because on the one hand, it was about the fear of communism and the fact that somehow this idea that communism was going to seep into the public through movies. And so there was that fear,

but there was also a practical thing from the corporate side, because for the first time, this guild was starting to cut into studio profits. And it just so happens that the leaders of that guild and a lot of the members of the guild at the time, the guild was not, didn't cover all writers you had to join, but a lot of the people who joined the guild were on the radical left and were being accused of extremism.

So there was this opportunity to sort of decimate the union. Wow. So like weaponizing that anti-communist fervor just in the name of corporate profits. Yeah. I mean, that was a piece of it. It was both. It was, you know, the communist thing was also, I don't want to say that that was just a whole fake thing. I think people really were scared but but then there was also this sort of and their corporate benefit yeah from uh limiting the power of the union however during the entire blacklist it was a terrible time a lot of people lost their careers the guild still kept uh their power of determining credits now there is um it's interesting because they would determine the credit and some of the studio would say well that writer's a communist we're not giving him

credit and there's a movie called i think the friendly persuasion a friendly persuasion i don't remember the exact title that won the academy award i think 1956 for best screenplay but there's no screen and no screenwriter it won best screenplay it won best, but it has no screen and no screenwriter. It won best screenplay. It won best screenplay. But it has no screenwriter. Now it does. And that's the point I'm making is that because the guild kept, kept its power and kept determining that when the blacklist ended, they could go back and get, get those writers.

The credit there was denied them during, during the blacklist and so but that movie won best screenplay but the studio wouldn't put the one put the writer's name on it and there was only one writer it wasn't like he shared it he wrote the movie yeah um i think his name was michael wilson anyway i think so but the guild was damaged uh A lot of people had issues with how the guild conducted itself. It didn't take a strong enough political stance. A lot of writers were hurt. But because it did that work of continually determining credit, it allowed a repair job after the blacklist ended of getting writers their credit back.

hair job after the blacklist ended of getting right and that's a baseline that's just a baseline piece of dignity to have your your name on your work and be respected and and also it's i think it's a wonderful thing about our business that you know at the end of every piece you watch everybody's name is on you know or or i mean it's very meaningful personally when your name is on, you know, or, or I mean, it's very meaningful personally when your name is on something. It's just, it is, it's, it's, it's kind of in, it's meaningful for me when I watch our show where I know everybody personally who works on the show and I see all of their names. So I'm like, yeah, this is, this is all of us. It's not just, you know, a bunch of randomness. Although I do, it's interesting. I do think that it's personal to us, the people who do the work on it. I do have a story though, of like like I think of how little it means to people in America.

There's a movie called Logan's Run. Oh, yeah, yeah. Very well-known movie, which I saw three times in the theater as a kid and never noticed that the screenwriter's name was David Goodman. Though it was your name. On the screen. Yeah. name. On the screen. Yeah. Big name on the screen. David is a different middle name.

David Zelag Goodman. And I'm like, how did I miss that? How did my dad, who took me to the movie, miss that? I mean, but you're not reading credits. But just to the point about that, like it sounds maybe so trivial or like narcissistic, but I think about how I've read about how in the video game industry, for instance, which is going through its own sort of labor awakening to some degree, or at least it's at the very beginning stages. I've read about how the game companies use credits as like a weapon against the people who are working on the games that like, Hey, if you take another job, your name won't be on this game. If you, if you like, you know, they work on these games for five years. If you leave, you know, early, your name won't be on the game.

Or if you don't really pull your weight, your name won't be on the game. And like both in terms of those people's like careers of like wanting to say, yeah, I wrote the story for this game or I designed or I led the art team. And then also for their like just emotional connection to their work as being like, you know, creative work, which is always deeply personal. It's like, that's really sort of heartrending. And I can, I can, it makes so much sense for why that would be one of the, one of the very first things you'd want to fight for. Right.

I mean, I think that was probably the thing that was getting writers most angry yeah was this because i think the other piece of it is it's you know as you as a writer and you're you know you you know this you you you make you write this thing and it's caused you probably a fair amount of pain whatever it is and and but you also feel this sort of a little bit of joy and like i solved this problem yeah i came up with this idea or this character i wrote this dialogue and then somebody says uh yeah you know we're this guy who who wrote this one line he's gonna get the whole all the credit for everything else and it's like right and it's still a problem to this day i mean you know it's it's

still a big issue in the guild because the way the guild determines credit is a bunch of writers read you know the studios will hire numerous writers there'll be numerous scripts and the way when like people might not realize when you watch a big when you watch any big blockbuster movie and you see three names maybe written by these three people probably what maybe a dozen people could have actually easily contributed you know opened their screenwriting software and at least done something on it exactly and so the way the credits are determined is that all the drafts get sent to the guild and then a group of writers three writers read every draft and decide oh my gosh decide who contributed the

most and there are rules and there are and it's hard and it's imperfect it's to to say so there there's someone there's someone at the guild who read every draft of uh star wars of the new star wars this the the sky with the rise of sky, and knows exactly what went down in the writing of that movie. Well, there's more than one. There's a group of writers who read all those scripts. Oh, you should have seen draft three. That was the good one. But then, oh, things took a turn.

I don't know that they're making judgments. You'd have to be a little bit. I've done a lot of arbitrations in television and it's an interesting process because we we almost always are in agreement the writers all read it's like it's so clear that this writer contributed the most yeah this is the person who figured out oh the main part of the story and then it all. Yeah. And everything else is interesting and additive, but it's still this person's creation or this person added this major thing. You've got to give them credit. Yeah. So it's an interesting problem.

But again, very imperfect because, again, now credit is connected to money. very imperfect it's called because again now credit is connected to money if you get credit on a movie or or a television show that means that's determinative of how much money and residuals you're going to get yeah and if you if you did a lot of work and you don't get credit you're yeah you're pissed but i also want to talk about, yeah, I think there's a perception that, you know, people know that some writers are paid a lot, right? Oh, J.J. Abrams, you know, nine-figure deal or whatever, right? And so there's like a perception of the Writers Guild as, you know, representing those writers. But then when I go to the meetings, I'm like, well, hold on a second. The things people are talking about are the same things that workers are talking about everywhere.

are the same things that workers are talking about everywhere. Like talking about health care and paid parental leave is like one of the big things that comes up at every meeting now, which is like everybody is in that same boat with paid parental leave. And, you know, beyond those issues of credit and those sorts of things, like there's so many, you know, I don't want to use the word rank and file, but there's so many like middle class like people in our are who are like being protected by the guild in this way. Well, I mean, you know, even though you have, again, members like JJ or Seth or who are big earners, the guild isn't there for them. Yeah.

Where they've got agents and managers and lawyers. Well, more importantly, the guild's creation was about making sure that there was a minimum amount of money that a writer would be paid, that they would get health insurance, that they would get residuals. And that's always been about the middle class writer. The fact is the benefits that the big writers get, we're not negotiating the contract of the companies to protect the interests of our top earners. We're entirely focused on what a new writer makes, what a mid-level writer makes, and making sure that the companies who are making lots of money from that work

are properly compensating those writers. The guilt sets the minimum wage. Essentially, yeah. Yeah. And I think, I don't know, it's just fascinating to me because writing is like, you know, TV writing is like a pretty good bit of work to get, you know. It's great.

You're very lucky to get. Yeah. I'm, you know, um, great. We're very lucky to get, I mean, I, I can, I'm, you know, again, my mother was a social worker. Uh, she raised three kids. I never made more than $40,000 that her end salary when she retired in the eighties was 40 grand. Um, you know, we, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't. And she worked her ass off. Yeah. I mean, I work hard, but it's a different kind of work. And I get to make things up for a living.

And that, I feel so lucky from that perspective. But it strikes me that, you know, we have this perception, hey, that's a great line of work to be in. Right. But it's because of the guild that it is. Like, it could be very bad. I know people who work in reality, and it's not a nice business to be in, and it's a lot harder to make ends meet,

despite the fact that the shows make just as much money. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a great point. I think that the leverage that writers bring to bear by being part of the union protects – tries to protect the work environments and the pay. But it's a constant battle and now we're entering a period where writers are – it is feeling a little bit more like reality. A lot of the streaming services are doing series. It takes a lot longer to do those services. And it can keep writers from getting a new job.

It can keep writers from earning above the minimum. And so that the working conditions are, we were trying to fight the changing working conditions because we want it to be. That downward pressure is constant. Constant. Yeah. Well, I want to talk more about how the business is changing, but we got to take a really quick break. We'll be right back with more David Goodman. Okay, we're back with David Goodman. So what is the leverage that the Guild uses in order to fight back against those pressures like where does the power of a union

even come from it's almost like ineffable like on the wind like sometimes you're trying to figure it out no i mean i it's the only power the only real power union has is to strike or and to threaten a strike i mean that's really when it comes down to it. I'm not, you know, you don't want to do it. You never want to do it, honestly, but, but sometimes you have to. So for instance, the power of the writers guild to stop the flow of product by stopping writing is powerful. It's scary. It's scary to the companies. They, they, in the lead up to a strike, they start doing everything they can. The lead up to the rumor of a strike. Yeah.

There's a rumor that there might be a strike. They start stockpiling scripts, going to television shows and saying, hey, could you do a couple extra scripts so that if there's a strike, we can shoot some episodes? Or going to feature writers and saying, hey, you got any ideas? We'll buy it. We'll buy it strike we can we can shoot some episodes or uh going to feature writers and saying hey you got ideas we'll buy it we'll buy it so we can get the script done because if there's a strike then we'll have scripts because it they want that the flow of product is very important to them yeah and the flow of again in the launching of these new streaming services

as an example new product is uh paramount that is the mandalorian is what launched disney plus right you know i mean all that other stuff helped yeah but the mandalorian like is that is literally the most popular show in the world i think yeah it's literally that and watchman is how hbo is fighting back yeah you know Yeah, you know, they'll put, they're going to look for the new, what's this new product, you know, an HBO Max, which, you know, they've obviously, they're keeping, I think, Friends, and they'll be launching. That's the other big thing is whoever has Friends is, like, winning, right?

Whoever's got Friends or South Park or Seinfeld. I mean, there are some, you know, Friends, The Office, those kind of perennial shows that people are still watching because of their Simpsons, because of their brilliance, are meaningful. But it also, in order to drive new subscriptions, you still need new product. Yeah. You got to see this. I got to sign up. Yes. sign up yes and so that to me is uh comparable to historically the guild's power was we could

uh put a crimp in the launch of the network television season if we went on strike so that it's an unfortunate i you know i i face uh conversations with the members all the time is like, is there anything else we could do? Is there, you know, and, and don't we have any other power? And we have some leverage. But, you know, when it comes down to it, a union's power is its ability to stop working. Yeah. And what else, what else is there to do, but to say, hey, the deal's not good enough. We we respectfully decline. We're not going to take the offer. And so we're not going to, we would get what we're asking for. Is what we're asking for realistic? Is this, you know, and so that's always the question. The guild decides.

It's an interesting thing. It's sort of where I started this conversation. I don't have any power. I really don't. I only have the role of spokesman. But if the members aren't for it it's not going to happen yeah if you show up to a meeting and you say hey guys i think uh it would be a good idea if we all went on strike and everyone just you boo we're going back to work tomorrow i mean you're done like you

you can call a strike as much as you want but you can't force anybody to do anything you the members have to see that whatever whatever the guild strategies are in their interest. And if they don't, you know, then you're done. And that's also, you know, part of the problem. I'm not talking now about the Writers Guild. I'm talking about unions in general is that because of this downward pressure on wages, because people in so many industries are making less money and having a much harder time, that they can't even risk the idea of being out of work. So the union loses power. And that's the success of corporate America in demonizing unions and consolidating their power.

And that's really a sad state of affairs for workers in general. Yeah. But it's also, there's a little bit of hopefulness in there that if you- No, Adam, there's no hope. No? I'm trying to find a positive- No, no. I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. Well, I mean, I'm thinking if you're listening to this and you're a worker as everybody is, as every adult person is, and you're not in a union and you're not happy about your work, there is power and leverage. If you look around your office, everybody there, if you decline to work together. We've seen it.

We've seen it with teachers in, um, was it Alabama? There was a, uh, we saw teachers who, uh, teachers in LA went on strike this year, but last year, but the, I think the Alabama teachers weren't unionized and they went on strike and I don't know that they're unionized still, but they were making so little money. And so they saw, they saw they had a, they were all being oppressed. They were all not being paid for the work. And their students were being hurt. It was hurting the state. You know, so that, and there was a lot of both support in the state, but national support. And that's, that's the beginning of unions again. It's like,

we're going through another cycle where, because unions have been decimated, now workers are suffering and they're seeing there's power in working together. And so yes, that's the hopefulness. I feel like we've been on a downward trend in unions in this country, but then it will swing up again because workers will unite again. Yeah. And that, and they will see that being in a union works to the individual's advantage. And that, and that's where all unions started. It starts with a group of workers deciding our interests are aligned and we've got to fight together. I read a really interesting framing of this.

I think it was Hamilton Nolan is a writes about labor issues. A lot described it as that for decades uh corporate america decided it wanted to have labor peace that you know work conditions were for workers were so bad you had strikes all over the country that debilitated the country you had you know massive unionization and then uh it was you know a lot of times it was scary it stopped you know economy a lot, and it was such a problem that corporate America was like, okay, let's have peace. Let's make a deal with these workers and all these different industries, auto industry, entertainment industry, so many industries, that gave them a fair deal. And over the last couple decades, they've decided, actually, we don't want to do that anymore. We don't want peace.

We're okay pissing the workers off. We're okay diminishing wages. If it makes people angry, it makes them angry. We'd rather have more profits. And now we're starting to see unrest again. It comes from there. I don't know who that writer is. I think that your presentation in that analysis really takes out the fact that workers really showed their power.

They showed the kind of power that they had so that whether or not corporations wanted peace or not, it didn't matter because these unions had power and were using their power. And so what's happened is there's been a diminishing of that. I really sense the Reagan administration, there's been an assault on unions so that unions in general represent now a much smaller group of workers. All these right to work states now, which are right to work is just an awful lie because it's not right to work. It's, you know, it's we're going to kill the union.

Yeah, it's an abridgment of the right to form a group that represents you and to have solidarity. Right. So those were all but they they put it in this thing of right to work. So it makes it sound like it's in the workers' interest when it's not. Yeah. And this has hurt the leverage of unions across the country. And workers, unfortunately, now are sort of having to find their way back to understanding the power of collective bargaining.

When you said that the union's real power is when it goes on strike or when it withholds its work. Or the threat of a strike. The threat of a strike, yeah. What are the gains that the Writers Guild has made through going on strikes over the years? Well, in 1960, the strike that gave us our health benefits. Thank you to those writers who went on strike for giving me my health benefits. And there's always sacrifice. The writers in that union gave up residuals on the entire library that existed before 1960.

So those writers gave up money. There's always sacrifice. Wow. And that was part of the deal. We're giving that up. We're giving up the money on all that entire library so that going forward, members will have health insurance. Wow, really? And so the most recent strike in 2007 was about the internet.

And writers during that strike made personal sacrifices. The deals were canceled. They gave up work. And then it timed out with a big economic downturn. So a lot of those jobs didn't come back after the strike, not because of the strike, but because it was the huge economic downturn in the country. But we got coverage of the internet,

and now between 20% and 30% of our members work on television shows and feature films that are streamed that wouldn't be covered if we hadn't gone on strike. And that was in 2007 that the Guild saw that coming. And it's a really, you know, I remember I was a member, I had just been elected to the board and I remember other leadership and staff trying to explain to me that people were going to be watching television shows on their computer. And I'm like, no, it's not going to happen. And then people telling me, describing smart televisions. Like, your computer and your television are going to be one and the same.

And I'm like, no. It's a good thing you weren't making all the decisions then. Absolutely not. But I'm like, no, but all right. If we have to, I believe them. I believe they're being sincere. I just couldn't picture it. Yeah.

Hulu launched like the next year. Hulu launched the day the strike ended. Really? Yeah. No, the companies knew what was happening. Obviously, the companies were planning. That's why they made us take a strike. They, that's the other piece of this is that, you know, we said we wanted coverage of the internet. The companies took a gamble that we wouldn't be able to hold together and that they

might be able to get the internet for free. And because they were, they all had corporate plans about streaming, about, you know, the idea that it's so hard to remember that like when you loaded a video off the internet back then, it could take forever to load a five minute video. And so the idea that you could think that they're going to be making television shows for the internet doesn't seem possible. The technology didn't seem, you couldn't, and then obviously the streaming thing just started getting better and better and better

and happened so fast. And the companies were working on it. And so thank God the leadership and the staff of the Guild was too. We're seeing the future because we'd be so screwed now if we hadn't gone on strike in 2007. Wow. People ask me about the agency campaign. seeing the future because we'd be so screwed now if we hadn't gone on strike in 2007. Wow. People ask me about the agency campaign. They say they've read a little bit about it and they say what-

America's read a little about it? I mean, do you think really that people listening to this podcast have any idea what this is? Perhaps they have not. Like if they follow me on Twitter, they'll occasionally see me tweet about it. Like my friends from home are like, what the hell is going on? Can you explain it in 30 seconds? I'll try. Yeah. Our agents, the way agents used to operate in the old days was they would take 10% of a client's income for helping them get a job and negotiating their deal. Over the years, the agents have developed, their companies have grown, and they've started doing something called,

they would get a packaging fee from the studio. And this is instead of taking commission from the client. As a result, this packaging fee, which was associated with representing the client, but was not being paid by the client, was being paid by our employers to our agents. The agencies got rich. They've become big companies themselves.

A couple of them have started producing. And as a result of that, the clients they're representing's income has declined. Our income as writers has declined over the last 20 years, 25%. Wow. I'm not even taking cost of living. I'm saying actual decline. Wow. And so we realized we needed to address this. year, the guild, again, we, it was all about reaching out to the members and explaining this to them and saying, we really feel like we need to fire any agent that is going to be taking these

fees and going to engage in these conflict of interest. Because the idea that an agency could be producing a television and movies is a conflict of interest because your agent is your employer. They're not your agent anymore. Yeah. I, I remember when I finally understood the issue, like my own boiled down version of it is like the, the guild is by law,

the only body that can like allow agents to work for writers, right? We grant the ability to agents because the union is, you know, by law negotiates on behalf of writers, but the union says, Hey, the agents can do everything other than the minimums, anything, everything other than scale.

And so the question is, should a labor union give the right to negotiate for its workers to people who are being paid by the bosses? Does that make sense? That's essentially right. For the labor union. And, and, oh, clearly no. So we withdrew that, that right and said okay you can't you can no longer represent a writer if you're being paid by the bosses of the writer i don't know why you asked me to explain thank you well i do my i do my best um well so that's now that is it's an interesting battle because it's not a it's not a battle with the bosses directly. It's with these other bodies that work in the industry. But in the same way, those big agencies, they've been buying each other,

they've been taking on these massive investments, and they're trying to hoard power in the business. And so it's been a long battle with these sort of major forces of capitalism. Do you feel it's been going well? Yeah, it has. I mean, it's tough. I mean, at the beginning of this process, all the agencies were unified against us.

Now many of the midsize and smaller agencies have signed, have negotiated with the Guild a new agreement, have signed it, are representing writers again. And they'll no longer have those conflicts of interest. They're no longer paid by the bosses. And writers, some writers are still, I think, upset that they're not with their agents. And that's something we take very seriously. Many writers have found other representation,

whether it be managers or lawyers. And then the question remains, when are these big four agencies, who are sort of the remaining agencies, who haven't signed, when and if they will make a deal with us? There have been discussions. I don't have an answer to that right now, you know, there've been discussions. I, I don't have an answer to that right now, but, uh, I think, uh, I think writers in the majority of the members of the guild thought this was the overwhelming majority of the members of the guild thought this was a fight we needed to, uh, take on.

And again, the overwhelming majority are still for it. But, you know, we never fully agree on anything. And I don't dismiss the people who are against it either. You know, and I have to keep a close watch on how the members are feeling about this and do everything we can to resolve it. Well, that brings up one of what I think is sort of one of the core conflicts or core questions I have about unions in general, because you're always going to have, look, as you say, the strength of the union is its membership and the membership feeling the same way about something and putting their money where their mouths are and fighting for that thing. But you're always going to have people who disagree, right? I remember one thing that really stuck with me. One writer wrote like an op-ed somewhere about how they didn't agree with the agency campaign. And they said, I just don't like being in clubs and I don't like other people telling me what to do, right? And I'm like, hey, I can't argue with that.

I can't tell that person that they're wrong to say, I don't want to be in this club. I didn't sign up to be, but I have to be. And I don't like it telling me what to do. That is a little bit of, through another lens, a core who's the leader of that group that like you're always going to have folks who feel like, hey, what the fuck is this? Why do I have to be a part of this at all? I mean, that is a, that's a, it's a tough thing to deal with. I think that what I try to do with anybody like that is a is a reminder of the things they have gotten from being part of that group as you just reacted to the strike that happened in 1960 they

gave us health insurance the health insurance that gets transferred from one employer to another like i can be i can have i can work for every studio in town they all pay into my health fund. They all pay into my pension. I don't have to have 15 different accounts. And that's all part of being part of that club, that because you write a movie or a TV show and you get money if it's rerun, that's from being part of that club. And so trying to make people understand that there's real benefits that wouldn't exist. And again, I think there are writers, actors, directors who would be giant successes without being part of their union. But the overwhelming majority of our members have gotten some substantial benefits from being part of the union.

And that's the conversation I try to have. I don't convince everybody. For sure. And I don't expect you to. It's just – and I understand why you think about it in terms of that day-to-day conversation with those members. But I also like, there's a, there's a philosophical question as well of like, there's this idea that as Americans, like we should always have the ability to make any choice we want at any time, which is obviously not true in daily life. Right. You know, but, you know, I, I'm constantly faced with the hypocrisy of, of the, the, the self-made American businessman who relied on the U.S. post office, the U.S. road system, the U.S. education system,

all the things that America gives everybody or tries to give everybody. There's nobody self-made. Yeah. And so that idea that I shouldn't have to pay taxes because I did it on my own. No, you didn't do it on your own. It's a lie. That's a lie. Yeah.

And that's most of the members of the guild, I think even almost all of our members recognize that there's a positive association with their own lives and careers because the Guild existed. Yeah. The comparison to taxes is a really good one. That's a similar thing where like, why should I have to pay this just for existing? Right. I heard an interview, this stuck with me so long, interview with Doug Stanhope, who's a great comic, libertarian. He was interviewed on Mark Maron's show years ago.

And he said something, I'm going to paraphrase, but it was like, the question of being a libertarian is, did I come into this world owing anybody anything? Right? And I was like, oh, that is a really good question. He feels like he doesn't. That's like a feeling of his heart. I can understand that.

I disagree. Because if your mom drove to the hospital on a public road, then you do. Then I'm sorry. I'm going to ask you to chip in for the road. If that's how you came into the world, dude. I mean, I guess the doctor would be paid, but the doctor wouldn't have any place to work. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

You know, hospitals are, you know, things that exist because other people put them together. I mean, maybe if you were born in, you know, your mother just. Yeah. Were you born at a state university hospital like I was, you know, for example? I believe so. I think I believe I was. You know, for example, I believe so. I think I believe I was again for the folks who are listening to this show, you know, thinking about their own workplaces and thinking about what they can maybe take from the guilds example or just from your thinking about, you know, labor issues in this country to their to their own places. Like, what do you what do you have to say to them? Well, I mean, don't listen to what a company says about

a union. Uh, don't, don't, uh, that, that to me is the biggest one. I think that, uh, don't, don't listen to, I mean, this, I'm sorry. I don't listen to what the Republican party says about unions. I, I, they're not being honest. Um, I think that to me, so, so on the one hand, you've got to sort of push all that noise aside and sort of look, uh, at your workplace, look at the other people in your workplace and decide, is there, is there power, uh, with us getting together and don't, you know, and it's a tough thing forming a union. I've never had to form a union.

So the idea of starting from a place of having to form a union, I have such enormous respect for the people who do it, who stand up and say. And there are people doing it all over the country now. Yes. And to me, it's like they're real heroes. They're not just out for themselves. They understand they're out for a lot of other people.

And so, you know, and if you're in a union, I think the most important thing that was said to me was from – I have a cousin who was a union organizer for the communication workers union. And when I joined the guild, when I got my first job as a writer, and she lives out here and she became their chief legal counsel and strong union person, she said, she told me the union is the only bureaucracy in your life that you can have some control over. And she said that to me. I didn't quite know what she meant, honestly. Because again, you think of the unions as kind of, you can think of your union as kind of like the DMV.

It's like this thing and it's out there and it's like, you know. I got to deal with it. I got to deal with it, but I really don't want to and never want to go there, whatever. But it's not. with it, but I really don't want to and never want to go there, whatever. But it's not. A union is this organic thing made up of people. And if you get involved, you can really affect change. And that has been my experience. I've noticed that as well, just from showing up at meetings. And first of all, as democracy in action, it literally matters in the room when we're talking about the agency campaign or striking or anything else.

How do the people in the room feel? Are they applauding for the idea of being tougher? Are they applauding for the idea of taking it easy? And that has a real effect. And then if you show up to enough things, you'll just start getting asked to be on committees and shit.

And do work for free. And make decisions, yeah but but those decisions affect people you're a great union member oh i love seeing you in meetings oh that's okay i'm gonna end on that note because it made me feel warm and fuzzy thank you so much for coming on david oh thank you i appreciate it well thank you so much to everybody for listening i hope you you enjoyed that conversation with David Goodman as much as I did. That is it for us this week on Factually. I want to thank our producer, Dana Wickens, our researcher, Sam Roudman, our engineer, Ryan Conner, and Andrew WK for our theme song.

You can follow me everywhere you want, at Adam Conover. Sign up for my mailing list or check out my tour dates at adamconover.net. And until then, I'll see you next week on Factually. Thanks so much for listening. That was a HateGum Podcast.