Tech Won't Save Us - Why Hollywood Writers May Strike Over Streaming w/ Anousha Sakoui

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Paris Marx is joined by Anousha Sakoui to discuss the prospect of a writer’s strike later this year, what workers are fighting for, and how the move to streaming has affected working conditions and compensation in Hollywood.Anousha Sakoui is an entertainment industry writer for the Los Angeles Times, covering topics including labor and litigation in Hollywood. She was part of the team that was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist in breaking news for work covering the tragic shooting on the “Rust” film set. You can follow Anousha on Twitter at @anoushasakoui.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.Also mentioned in this episode:Anousha wrote about how the Writers Guild and Directors Guild are approaching upcoming negotiations with studios.David Robb wrote about the history of Writers Guild strikes, and why another one seems overdue.WGA West recently blasted Warner Discovery for reducing opportunities for content creators after its merger.In 2021, IATSE was poised to go on strike before reaching a last-minute deal with the studios that was accepted by members.A new deal will loosen some Covid protocols on film sets.In 2021, Apple was paying lower rates to production crews because it said its TV+ service has less than 20 million subscribers. In July 2022, it started paying the higher rate.In 2018, the Hollywood Reporter reflected on the 2007 writers strike after ten years.The 2007 writers strike helped revive Donald Trump’s flagging The Apprentice show with a spinoff, The Celebrity Apprentice.Support the show

It's not the glamorous work that people think it is. It can be grueling and dangerous. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Anusha Sakui. Anusha is a reporter at the LA Times where she covers the behind the scenes of Hollywood, and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2022. You might remember in 2021, some workers in Hollywood with the IATSE union were about to go on strike as they were negotiating for a better deal with an alliance of movie studios. They didn't end up doing that, but it brought a lot of attention to the labor conditions in Hollywood and how streaming in particular has been changing the way that Hollywood works and the way that workers in that industry are compensated. Well, in the next few months, three more major unions are going to renegotiate their contracts

with the studios. And that means that there's a possibility that another strike could be in the offing. In particular, the Writers Guild of America, which is the most likely to strike, has to renegotiate their contract in the next few months. And that means that if they are not able to get the studios to agree with their demands and to set a fair model for the industry, it's likely that those workers could be back on the picket line like they were in 2007. Now, this is a really important conversation. And even though it seems like,

you know, an entertainment industry and Hollywood conversation, it's still very much connected to the tech industry as well, because a lot of these transformations, a lot of these changes, a lot of these problems that workers are experiencing are the result of how much production has shifted from traditional cinema showing or going on broadcast or cable television over to streaming services. And that has changed the model of how these productions work, how these workers are paid, and just how the industry works on a more basic level. So in this conversation, I wanted to discuss that with Anusha so that we could have that context as these negotiations get closer and so that we can understand how streaming and how companies like Netflix and even Apple and Amazon and these other more traditional entertainment companies, as they have moved into streaming, are transforming the industry and are able to

use their power and their influence as they have consolidated to try to push workers and to reduce their compensation and make their working conditions not as good as they used to be. So it's an important conversation. I was really excited to talk to Anusha about it and to really get into the details. Certainly, you know, we start with laying a bit of the groundwork just by outlining what these unions are, how they came to be, and who they represent.

And then we really get into the nitty gritty of why these strikes are happening, how this kind of carve out, how this different designation for streaming productions was made, and why these unions are looking to change it now and whether they're going to be successful at that. So if you like this conversation, make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would learn from it. And if you want to make sure we can keep having these

critical conversations about important issues that tech is involved in, even when it's not, you know, just about Silicon Valley, like in this case, you can join supporters like Tom from New York, Ben from Finland, and Ran from Berlin by going to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus, where you can sign up. Thanks so much, and enjoy this week's conversation. Anusha, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us.

Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to chat. You wrote this piece recently about the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild and, you know, these upcoming negotiations that are about to happen in Hollywood as these unions try to fight for some better terms because their contracts are coming up for renewal. And there's a whole load of kind of topics enmeshed in these negotiations, what's going on here. And there's a big link to the move to streaming, how popular streaming has become in recent years, and what that has meant for workers in Hollywood. So I want to dig into all of this with you. But because, you know, a lot of the listeners will be more familiar with the tech industry than the entertainment industry, I wanted to start by

getting some insight into what labor in Hollywood actually looks like. So I was hoping you could kind of lay the groundwork for us and tell us what are the various unions that exist in Hollywood and who do they represent? So Hollywood is very heavily unionized, which I think might be a surprise to some people, but the unions are very powerful and most of the industry is represented by unions. Although they're still making some efforts to cover new grounds like SAG-AFTRA, which represents actors, for example, and is Hollywood's biggest union. They are moving more into, say, the area of podcasting, for example. I'll have to join up. Yeah.

Then there's the Writers Guild of America, which has a West and East faction, but they are kind of seen as, they obviously represent writers for TV and film. They are seen as maybe the most militant of the unions because they've basically because they've gone on strike the most in this past sort of like 100 years or so forth and then you have the directors guild of america which represents directors but also directors team members so that's like assistant directors and unit production managers who are the people who run the day-to-day productions of a film or TV

program. The Directors Guild of America is interesting because compared to maybe, say, SAG-AFTRA or the Writers Guild, supposedly more of their members are working members. So if you can imagine with, say, SAG-AFTRA, maybe not all actors are working all the time that's one of the things that sort of gets talked about and then there's IATSE which we call IATSE which stands for the international alliance of theatrical stagehands employees something like that theatrical stage employees yeah that's it I always have to look it up strangely even though i've been doing this for years so that is a huge union which represents what we call below the line or basically behind the scenes sort of crew members so crafts like

hairdressing and makeup production design, script supervisors, electricians, all sorts. And then there's some other, there's also the Teamsters have a Hollywood chapter, and there's the Animation Guild. So there's other smaller unions as well, but those are the main ones. And IATSE is probably characterized by being probably the least militant of all of them. It's one that's really never gone on strike. You have to go back really to its founding to find any kind of walkouts on a national level.

They do walk out sometimes on specific programs. And on every major TV or film production is a signatory to their contracts. Some low-budget productions or notably reality shows, non-scripted productions tend to be non-union. But the big things that you're watching on Netflix or you go to the movies, they tend to be union productions. That's really interesting. And I feel like some of the names there, like the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees kind of tells you how old these unions actually are in some cases, you know, been around for quite a long time and have evolved as the industry has kind of,

you know, changed as new technologies have changed the way that entertainment works. And they've kind of, you know, adjusted to that. You know, some people might look at that and say, you know, unionization has gone down a lot in the US and Canadian economies over the past number of decades, because I believe many or all of these unions also extend to Canada or have Canadian chapters or what have you. You know, why is the entertainment industry so heavily unionized compared to maybe other industries? It's a good question. And if anything, they are expanding, right? Like they are growing in the areas that they're looking at, you know, they're organizing. I think part of it is that, you know, this is an industry where

maybe people can take advantage a lot, you know, like people would have you working for free on whatever project. And I think that that's part of the reason people have, you know, really needed the protection and to create some kind of standard of the reason people have, you know, really needed the protection and to create some kind of standardization for whether it's, you know, an actor or writer. I think that's part of it. I came to LA from London and it was surprising to me. I didn't realize how heavily unionized it was. And it's, if you compare it to say the UK um production scene it's it's not as unionized um

the the unions there are much smaller there is a union for film production but uh it's it's much smaller than than here in la so yeah i think that's part of the driving factor yeah it's really fascinating right and just to throw like a devil's advocate question at you so that you know we we have it covered and then we'll move on to talking about these negotiations a bit some people might think about this and say you know why do actors need a union why do directors need a union they're paid so much what would be the response to that it's probably quite obvious but well you know people who make it very big in hollywood you, who are what you'd call A-list, they might get paid a lot. And even then, I think even the biggest performers that we know, like,

firstly, this is tiny number and everybody else, you know, they need, you know, what they call the basic agreement, which is protection in terms of like a minimum amount of pay. Also the hours. Last year when there was the IATSE tensions, it really came out how many hours the crew work. I mean, you're talking like 14, 16 hour days. So the contracts, they also protect them from the number of hours that they have to work. It gives them a minimum, and actors as well,

it gives them a minimum amount of what we call turnaround, which is the amount of time they can have off between that they have to come back on set. And I think productions are sometimes these things that like, you know, they're then not necessarily, you know, they can be run by anyone, you know, it's not necessarily these big conglomerates as a lot of the big studios are now, but, you know, small independent productions where, you know, they might want to film around the clock to get stuff done on a very tight budget. So these unions provide the workers in the different areas protections like that. And just the final piece of this, those are the various unions that exist. But then there's also an organization that represents the various studios, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, AMPTP.

Anything in particular we should know about them? Yeah. So Hollywood Studios and that makeup has been changing over time. And we should definitely talk about that. There are sort of two different bodies that sort of represent them. They're trade organizations. So the AMPTP is effectively the face of the employers in labor negotiations. And it negotiates on behalf of the studios in every three years or whenever the contracts come up.

And they represent the biggest studios and but more recently that's included netflix apple and amazon and uh and i think that's quite interesting you know how that body effectively has evolved as you've gotten more participants who you know that they're typically not unionized and they don't come from a unionized industry and then there's also the motion picture association which is just another sort of general trade body for hollywood but in negotiation for labor it's the ampdp interesting okay so you know as you mentioned there and as we've discussed and as people have probably seen in the news there has been a growing kind of contentious relationship, I guess, between the unions and between the MPTP, you know, these studios, because of how the nature of work in the industry has been changing, you know, as streaming has

grown, but also as some of these other issues have become something that, you know, the workers feel really need to be dealt with. And so I want to go back to 2007 briefly, because you mentioned that the Writers Guild is the most kind of activist of these unions, has been most likely to go on strike. And 2007 was the last time they went on strike over contract negotiations to try to win certain things. And one of the things that came out of that period, and it's unclear to me whether it was the Directors Guild or the Writers Guild that actually kind of achieved this first, or if that even matters, but was the designation of new media, which covered a lot of these kind of digital services, including streaming services, as I understand. Can you tell us a bit about what went on in that period and why

the new media designation was important to come out of those negotiations? You know, 2007 was a kind of pivotal time. Technology was, there have been a few pivots, you know, when you go to the creation of VHS and then DVD. But 2007 and 2008, it was the year that Netflix started going to produce its or distribute its content to the internet and away from DVDs. Hulu went live in 2008. At that time, writers were looking at the internet and seeing, you know, Apple was selling movies via the internet, you know, that you could download. And they were concerned about how they were going to get paid. There is this sort of constant shift of technology that's happening faster than their contracts can evolve and how the pay structure can evolve.

And so for years, really, they have been worried about being left behind by this technology. And so 2007 really became a very important point in labor negotiations in Hollywood because it became a hundred day walkout. It was very painful, the local economy. And I suppose the Writers Guild led it, you know, with sort of like nearly 10,000 members and it shut down, you know, more than 60 shows. So it had a very big impact. And that strike has become the big comparison for anything that has happened since, any kind of negotiations that have happened since.

I mean, a lot was lost as well. Nearly 40,000 jobs, about $2 billion estimated in lost output through that year. If it happened again now, I think the industry has changed a bit. A lot of it's shifted away from Los Angeles to other hubs like Georgia and New York. Yeah, that strike was critical in getting a piece of that pie, basically what we call streaming now, and making sure that writers and directors and actors get paid for their content and for their performances for when that content plays out on streaming. Now, obviously, to this day, that remains sort of contentious how much of that pie they're getting. But this was their

sort of like first piece of it. It's a pivotal strike for that reason. And maybe it's worth kind of drilling down on that point for just a second as well, because what you're what you're talking about here is residuals, right? You know, obviously, these workers do get paid for doing the work on this, but then there's an ongoing payment as rights continue to be sold as those movies or TV shows continue to be shown. And that is what these workers could expect that went into funding their benefits, their pensions, all these sorts of things. And one of the concerns as things have moved

to streaming and moved online is that there's far less of these residuals because of how the business model has changed. So do you want to describe to us exactly what those residuals are and how it has changed as things have, you know, gone digital. I mean, sort of harking back a bit to the beginning when we're talking about like, when people think about actors or directors, and they're thinking about Steven Spielberg or

Scarlett Johansson, you know, they're thinking, oh, they're getting millions. But the vast majority of directors or actors, their career pay is if they get a hit, maybe they get one. And that will support them for many years through this process of residuals, which is effectively fees for the reuse of their content. So it used to be that every time your TV show or film was shown on a network, you would get paid a fee. But now the evolution of technology and streaming has sort of muddied that. And not just streaming, but also some of the consolidation that's happened in Hollywood. So with streaming, you don't have the same, at the present, insight into who's viewing your content, how many people, how many times. All that kind of data is not easily available.

There's still a battle over that. And also there's an issue now of, say, Netflix, just as an example, but it really applies to all studios now. They produce and distribute the content. So there is this sort of vertical integration that's happened. And it's happened at all the studios where they all now own their own streaming platforms, where it's like, okay, are there arm's length deals happening where the producer is selling its content to a distributor and the people that are creating that content now have less insight into that deal-making. And these residuals are really valuable.

I mean, they're the things that have made Jerry Seinfeld rich, you know, for example. They were huge amounts of money when TV shows were syndicated and resold, you know, every time. One thing that might be helpful to think about is when we talk about content, we talk about windows. And so we'd have the theatrical window, say for a movie, which would be the first window. And that would be the first place where it's shown. And then you might have home video, and then you might have television and then DVD, for example.

But today, Netflix, I mean, we're picking on Netflix a lot, but they obviously were a leader in this. They will buy the rights for the whole world to be exclusive on their platform. And so the windowing system has completely changed. So you'd see there were so many different factors there in terms of effectively how streaming has completely upended the economics of Hollywood. So that's a story about residuals. And it's sort of like one factor, but it tells you how things have changed so completely in terms of how people get paid in Hollywood. Yeah. And it's really important, because as you described, not everyone is the Steven Spielbergs, not everyone is like the Brad Pitt's, you know, the people who get paid a lot to do these films. aren't necessarily getting these massive payments, but then are dependent on these residuals being there as they've worked on a number of projects to be able to, you know, give them a bit more of

an ongoing income to ensure that their pensions and their benefits are funded and all these sorts of things. And the switch to streaming and the reduction of those residuals creates a real big threat for them and their livelihoods or their, you know, the things that they thought they would be able to depend on later in life when they're not doing so much work. And so to connect to that, I think, is really, as you brought up earlier, the IONCY strike or the threat of a strike in 2021, I believe it was, when those workers were going through their contract negotiations. And for a while there, it looked like they probably were going to go on strike because they weren't getting what they wanted from the AMPTP in these negotiations. Can you tell us a bit about what happened in that period?

You know, what these workers, what this union was really looking for and fighting for, the residuals, but other things as well, and what actually happened there. That was a kind of fascinating year because the year before, there had already been one round of negotiations with the writers, actors, and directors. They negotiate basically every three years, the directors, and then the year after is when IATSE negotiates. So this year, we'll have the writers, directors, and actors renegotiating, and then next year, when we'll have the writers, directors and actors renegotiating and the next year we'll already be back at IATSE's contract. In 2020, the pandemic had obviously kicked off and there was, you know, people were expecting there to be a writer strike. That didn't happen. Yeah. And just to pick up on that, you know, it didn't happen because the expectation was the strike was going to happen. The contract renewal is usually around May or June.

Then the pandemic hits in March. And so it takes all the steam out of that, right? Yeah. I mean, really, there would have been nothing to walk out of effectively, had they. So it removed any kind of ability to threaten the strike or for a strike to have any impact. And so, you know, you walk into the IATSE negotiations, and it was a very different year. A lot had happened. As I said earlier, they're seen as the least militant, least likely to strike, least likely to rock the boat. In some part, maybe that's because, well, it has a very long history. And you go back to the 30s and 40s, and it was one of its sort of earlier formations was, you know, effectively controlled by the Chicago Mafia, where they were suppressing wages in exchange for kickbacks from the studios. And so it has this long history. And obviously, you know, now it doesn't have those links.

I think maybe some people think that's the reason why, you know, that they don't rock the boat as much. I think it's more to do with the fact that there are so many different crafts, so many different chapters. And this year they decided to work all together. And also there was a sort of grassroots campaign through social media, different factions, and in fact, one group in particular called IA Stories, IA is short for, effectively, IATSE, where people started to share anonymously

what it's like to work on a film set. And it is dangerous, and it can be grueling. And, you know, for decades, actually, people have talked about, dying in their jobs because, for example, they work these crazy long hours and then they have to commute. And so people either die sometimes behind the wheel driving, commuting, or they have lots of reports of near misses, people waking up at the wheel. So, you know, it's quite serious. And, you know, it's always good to remember that these are sets where they've got like heavy machinery, cabling, it's dangerous. So maybe with the influence of the pandemic, people were really exhausted. And the pandemic had an impact of not just a moment of shutdown, but the industry got back to work very quickly. And people were working extremely hard because

there was a period of catch up. So there was like a confluence of not only pressure from studios where, you know, there's a lot to get filmed and catch up on, but also this is a freelance sort of type of work. So I think people were working nonstop going, instead of having breaks like they might do, they were going from job to job to job because there was so much filming but also because productions have become shorter and that's also to do with streaming so people were exhausted going into this and sharing their stories and this sort of yeah there's just this momentum built up, I think, even to a surprise to union leaders, that really they were able to call for strike authorization, and they got an overwhelming, almost unanimous vote in favor. And they were going for the usual things like increased pay,

but also better turnaround times. I talked a bit about about this turnaround they had this thing called a fraturday which is effectively where working friday would bleed into saturday so like you wouldn't get home until like the early hours of saturday morning or even like saturday morning basically because you would wrap so late so you know they wanted protections to have like a core amount of weekend time and also like you mentioned you mentioned, streaming residuals. Now, for IATSE workers, they don't get a check like an actor or a director might. Their residuals fund their pension. So to ensure that they have stable health and pension benefits going forward, they really need a bigger piece of that pie. And so, you know, obviously, as streaming has made up a bigger part of the residuals compensation, the contribution towards a pension has gone down. So really,

it came to October, when, you know, that they were they had this huge momentum behind them. Ultimately, they didn't end up walking out. And walking out and it left a lot of acrimony and it probably left the union the most divided it's probably ever been because some members wanted them to push on and push for more and others just wanted to get back to work. And another sort of phenomenon that's existing is that there's a lot of younger members, a lot more active members than there have been in recent years. And there was some sort of criticism maybe of saying, well, you know, maybe people didn't really understand the process. Because I think, you know, the typical process that you start at the beginning and go in with certain demands,

members wanted more. And so the representatives in the talks couldn't then sort of change up and say and ask for more than they actually initially went in for. That's not typically how negotiations go. So I think there was a bit of angst there, but it was very notable simply because they got this almost unanimous strike authorization, even though in the end they never ended up doing it. Yeah, no, I think you've put it really well. And I remember in 2011, it was like, there were all of these stories that were going around that were being published by mainstream outlets and smaller outlets and fueled in part by, you know, that Twitter account, IA Stories, and just how much more, I guess, open a lot of these workers were being about the conditions in the industry and the conditions that they were facing as things

were changing in the industry, but also as there was all of this pressure to kind of, you know, get things filmed again, you know, there was, I'm sure concern as well about filming within a moment of COVID, you know, there's still a lot of COVID measures on a lot of film sets at the moment. Yeah. I mean, I think that was also part of it. I mean, film was one of the industries where people went back to work very quickly. And it was because, and you could say it's a good thing, but because the industry was able to come up with these COVID protocols, which would involve testing, masking, also sick pay, right? So protections like that, that the unions were able to agree to.

But it created quite tough working conditions as well. It added to the pressure and the stress. And people will also, you know, I think one theme I've heard a lot over the past couple of years is that maybe part of the fun that people might have had of this job was taken away because they weren't able to socialize on set in the same way, you know, during lunch or whatnot, you know, you didn't have the same sort of lunch experience or socializing experience on set. Sometimes if you're on location, you know, you'd be shut down in your hotel. So from that perspective, it was quite tough.

No, absolutely. Like you can completely understand and sympathize with that, right? Completely changing. And that I'm sure many workers have experienced that, right? How the pandemic has really changed the conditions of their work. Maybe that has come back a bit more toward where it was before as, you know, restrictions have lessened and stuff. But as I understand, they're still quite common in the film industry because of insurance reasons and things like that. Well, I think, you know, asking people to mask up, a lot of these are bargaining, you know, are things that the unions believe are things that have to be negotiated and bargained. And so now that they have this sort of agreement in place, if you get rid of it, and I'm sure, you know, it is slowly going away, that if you get rid of it, you have to get rid of

all of it. And that means getting rid of things like sick pay. So it's sort of like, okay, if you get rid of it, you have to get rid of all of it. And that means getting rid of things like sick pay. So it's sort of like, okay, if you get rid of the testing and you throw the baby out with the bathwater is the, you know, the expression obviously that people like to use. So that's the kind of reason why it's still around is that it does offer some protections that people want. I mean, effectively it will start to go away, you know, because it does slow down production. It has slowed down production to some degree. So I'm sure eventually it will go. Yeah, maybe that'll be part of some negotiations that'll be coming up in the next few months as well, I'm sure. So I do want to move on to, you know, what is going on now. As you said, this is the year that the Writers Guild, that the

directors and that SAG-AFTRA will be negotiating new contracts. The expectation is that those contracts are supposed to be signed by around June, unless, of course, one of these unions go to strike because they are not getting an agreement with the AMPTP. They're not agreeing on terms or conditions. And as you say, there was an expectation that this was going to happen in 2020. But because of the pandemic, obviously, it was pushed off to this year. So when we look toward the next few months, what are some of the issues that was put in place before is no longer working in part because of what streaming has done to the industry but i'm sure there are some other reasons there as well so we're at this stage where they still have to you know set their pattern of demands as this is called besides the usual sort of pay sustainability of their pension benefit and residuals you know streaming, streaming pay. They haven't

sort of laid those out yet. It's, I think, probably, you know, negotiations for the writers who have contract expires first. You know, what I've reported is that, you know, they maybe expect to start negotiations in March. But I think the biggest thing will be streaming and compensation linked to streaming. And there are so many different elements that it affects. But one that immediately comes to mind that we haven't mentioned so far is that in that agreement from, say, 2007, and that's been every three years, it's been improved or renegotiated. Part of that is that streaming is still considered new media. And I think over the

past couple of years, there's been a sort of union move to say, well, it's not so new anymore. Part of it being new and part of that agreement back in 2007 was that, well, let's give this new media a chance to evolve. And so those contracts actually have a discount. So it's actually you get paid less for a production on streaming than you might for a main network like CBS. It does vary, you know, so it's dependent on like how many subscribers the streaming platform has, for example. There are different gradations. I remember there was a story in 2021, you know, of course, as the IOTC negotiations were bringing a lot of attention to some of these issues, that Apple, even though it being a company with like a crazy amount of

money sitting in the bank, you know, it makes insane profits. It was probably at the time still the most valuable public company in the world by market cap. It was getting these discounted rates. It was not paying the full rate because it still fell into this category because it had so many subscribers like not over a certain threshold and it was like how does this make any sense yeah and i think obviously a lot of the you know workers in hollywood now are seeing that and because these companies now make up a greater part of the amptp it's it's all the more relevant but you know i think this year the big theme will be about streaming because since 2007 there have been you know obviously every few years a renegotiation but it does feel like and i interviewed the president of the the wga meredith team that who's you know

newly incoming in 2020 she really feels like this is a very important moment to be able to catch up and you know i think writers have been saying for years you know are we going to get left behind effectively by technology and it's really fascinating when you reached out to me for this podcast you know i obviously think about technology as being part of it but i think this year maybe more than more recently is that it's going to be the most important for film, and having an exclusive amount of time of maybe three months where a film was only visible in theatres. You had to go to theatres to see it now. That was shrinking anyway, but it's come right down to the point that you've had people suing studios over the fact that they were forcing a lot of their content straight onto streaming and bypassing the theaters because, you know, people, the theaters were shut down due to the pandemic.

So, you know, there's this very important lawsuit, which is Scarlett Johansson's or Johansson's lawsuit against Disney, which was ultimately settled. But I mean, you're talking potentially reportedly like tens of millions of dollars that she believed that she was owed because her movie Black Widow went straight to streaming and didn't go to theatrical. So if you can just imagine how much one person feels that they lost out there, and obviously she's an A-list star and you're talking about a Marvel property, but that was very contentious. And I think it says a lot about what's happening with the economics of Hollywood and what's at stake in these negotiations. Yeah, absolutely. And around the same time, Warner did the same thing for its whole, I believe, 2021 slate. And instead of going to court like Disney did, you know, it just kind

of paid off the various directors and actors so that they would, you know, not make too much of a fuss about it, even though some of them still did. Yeah. And one of the, I think it was the Wall Street Journal reported a number of like $200 million is what they estimated they might have to pay out. And the unions do go up against and have won arbitrations against the streamers for not just streaming companies, but companies with streaming platforms about how much they had paid. The WGA recently won an arbitration against Netflix in the summer where they won something like $42 million in unpaid residuals for, you know, about 200 writers. So there's a lot at stake that, you know, they're still sort of eking out and keep trying to keep on top of in terms of

our writers, for for example being paid accurately yeah and and as you say it's one of the things is that now you have the studios owning their own you know streaming platforms and that creates an opacity where it's harder to actually judge you know what residuals are are supposed to be paid and especially where there's less kind of selling the rights as you mentioned before you know you'd have the kind of theatrical release then the home release you might have pay-per-view, you know, foreign distribution rights, all these sorts of things will create more sales, which will create more residuals and things like that. That doesn't really happen with streaming in the same way. And I know when

we look at writers, one of the issues that they have as well is what's called mini rooms, where you're using fewer writers in order to put together these shows and things like that. And as we see on streaming, the seasons of television shows are typically more like, you know, eight to 10 episodes rather than, you know, the 20 odd we used to get for like broadcast television series. What kind of impact do those sorts of things have? Yeah. So it's not just this kind of dealing and the distribution platform that's changed, but also how the content itself has changed. So what writers might find now is that they are locked in. And it's true for actors. Actors also have these issues about exclusivity,

but that might be locked in for say like a year to a room in which they work. They call them rooms, which they staff up with writers to work on a TV show. And because they get paid per episode sometimes, they might only do six episodes. And so they spend a huge amount of time, like a year, and get paid for very few episodes. So that's one sort of specific issue. But in general, there are fewer episodes that are being made,

but sometimes stretched out over longer periods of time. So that is, you know, generally a bit of a bugbear for, you know, writers. And it's fine to have fewer episodes, but I think that they want to have, obviously, be paid more than to change the payment structure, if that's going to be the way it is and i think it's tv has changed so much you don't have these long series as series anymore but also it's become more theatrical a lot of these tv shows you know so the actual work that goes into each episode it can be a lot more and you can get like hour- episodes, which have extremely high production values, to the point that in some places,

they actually just consider them films, if actually mini films. And then, you know, there's this recent phenomenon, which some I've seen some creators want this addressed, but and this speaks to how things change so fast if contract negotiations can keep up with them, is that streaming is going through a process of slimming down. It's going through a very competitive moment where it's having to retrench a little bit, which creates an even more difficult backdrop. But you're seeing a lot of shows and films cancelled sometimes after they're made, but never shown. So it's like a new phenomenon of like, well, some of these shows, even if they're popular, aren't going to get more than one or two seasons. And so that adds to the dynamics of the struggle for writers and performers.

Yeah, absolutely. And as I understand, you know, a lot of the people who work on these shows could usually expect a raise around the third season. And that's when like Netflix and a lot of these streamers tend to be canceling the series be concerned about, to want to renegotiate with the various studios and tech companies who are creating these shows and who own these streaming platforms. You reported recently that the Directors Guild is, instead of negotiating first, has decided to kind of let the writers go first and see what they kind of get out of this. How significant is that, do you think? Yeah, to be accurate, they say that they might wait until their contract expiration, as opposed to some years where they've decided to go early. It's kind of a fascinating sort of technical conversation, which really tells you a lot about the unions themselves. What has typically happened in recent years is that the Directors Guild has gone in much earlier than its contract expiration, which is in June, and it's struck a deal with the AMPTP early. You know, some may say, you know, maybe they think that they'll get a benefit from giving producers, you know, the assurity that, you know, they're going to be able to make

their slate of content that year without interruption, and maybe they give a better deal. The Writers Guild has a different perspective, and they, well, you know, obviously it's not a monolith, but, you know, people within the Guild have different views. But, you know, I quoted someone in my story, a WGA source, who said that deadlines make deals. And, you know, if you've covered deal making, I've covered deal making in business. And that's quite a typical approach, you know, is to wait until the final hour until you have some leverage. So it's a very different negotiating approach that it seems this thing called bargaining patterns. So for example, the DGA would go first. And by agreeing a deal, there's this expectation on the behalf of the producers of that sort of sense, a benchmark for what other unions have to, you know, agree to. And I don't think, you know, my interpretation is that I don't think the Writers Guild likes that too much. In fact, they've sort of said as much when they got this sort of landmark deal with Netflix last summer over residuals, you know, effectively, they don't really like this bargaining pattern

where, you know, a producer might strike a deal with one union, and then it sort of forced that on another. So there hasn't, to my understanding, there's not been any like communication between the guilds about this, but the Directors Guild, unusually, this cycle has been very vocal, which, you know, I think they've been trying to communicate to their members how difficult this round of bargaining is going to be, which foreshadows what this year could have in store in terms of strike action. And in a couple of member announcements that they've put out, which is, again, unusual, they're usually quite tight-lipped, They've said that they might wait until their

contract expires, which would be after the WGAs, which would by definition mean that the Riders' Guild could go first. And that could set a tone of potentially saying like, okay, let the riders go first, see what they can achieve. But it paints this very interesting dynamic between the different unions about how these negotiations unfold. And they're not necessarily working together, obviously, on that. So yeah, I think it's going to be interesting. But we don't know what the DGA will do, but it's a possibility that the writers could go first and they could set quite a combative tone for this year. The last time the writers went first was 2007. So does that tell us that, you know, we're necessarily going to have a strike this year? The WGA has told its members, you know, it's too early to say whether or not they're going to strike. And sometimes they think

it's sort of done on purpose to sort of put them on the back foot. What would you put the chances of a strike at, at this point, do you think? Well, we don't have a strike-o-meter. I think the hill that has to be climbed is so high that I think it's pretty likely, especially if the WGA goes first. But they have struck the most in the history of Hollywood. So by definition, it would mean they have the highest probability of striking of the union. So I just think that what has to be achieved is so high, especially as it comes when the streaming companies

and the studios in general are struggling and they're dealing with a lot of losses and they are cutting back. So they're not going to be in the mindset of wanting to give away so much but over these past three years the economics of Hollywood has changed completely and you can understand that you know these creators don't want to be left behind and that I think as well like you do have younger members coming into these unions that are more active and want more, I suppose, and want to be more activist. So, you know, I think it's going to be an interesting year. I think at the same time, you know, on the flip side, the talk of possible recession,

could that take away anybody wanting to go on strike. People do remember that in 2007, a lot of people, what the studios did was they used a sort of force majeure, you know, clause in contracts to be able to drop a lot of writers. So people lost jobs, lost their livelihoods, and many left Los Angeles and left the industry as a result of that strike. So it was very painful for a lot of people. So I don't think people are necessarily chomping at the bit to do that. Yeah, I mean, I would put it at a significant risk. But you know, every time when I look back at coverage of different strikes, you know, there's been so many close calls over the years, you know, since 2007,

you know, so I think people talk a lot about striking and I think it's a good chance of it. I definitely don't think it's a given. Yeah, as you say, you know, there are really big issues that need to be tackled. But then at the same time, the streaming companies, the studios are facing difficulties. You know, we saw last year with what happened with Netflix and its big share price declines because it reported a drop in in subscribers and things like that. And then also, of course, you know, we're in this position, we're in this moment where inflation has been going up, where there's the risk of the recession, you know, that might make people a bit apprehensive about going on strike and not kind of having that income coming in for a while. One piece that I wanted to pick up on that you mentioned earlier was consolidation. You know, we've obviously had

these big tech companies move into the entertainment industry, you know, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and Amazon has recently bought MGM Studios. We also saw Disney buy Fox recently, a few years ago now. And there was the recent Warner Discovery merger. There have been other big acquisitions and mergers in recent years. What has that also meant for the workers as these studios and companies that they're negotiating with become larger and more powerful? Does that make it more difficult to get better terms? Yeah, it's more consolidated. So there's less competition. So that's one big issue. It also means you have more of that issue of some people call it self-dealing. Some people see that as a pejorative.

But effectively, what you're trying to say is that the producer and distributor are the same entity. So you don't have the visibility over like, well, how much is my content being valued at when a producer sells it to the distributor? I think what's interesting is that the composition of what we know as studios, you know, Hollywood studios has changed so much. So, you know, the Warner Discovery deal, Discovery has a lot of non-union content, you know, it's reality and unscripted. So I think that's going to be quite interesting. And also, yeah, you know,

so you have Amazon, Apple and, you know, tech companies, you know, in general, haven't been very open to organizing the labor movement. So I think that's fair to say. It's going to be interesting to see how this makeup affects the negotiations this time. But it's a very different landscape than it has been in other years. Yeah. I think it's definitely going to be interesting to watch what happens, the negotiations that come of it and where it all ends up. Is there anything, you know, that we didn't get to in this conversation that you think is important for the listeners to know as all this goes on that maybe I forgot to ask you about?

No, I do think that it's worth remembering that these are just sort of regular jobs for a part of the country. In Southern California, this is, you know, just a very, very big industry. And it's not the glamorous work that people think it is. It can be grueling and dangerous and doesn't necessarily pay very well. I mean, don't get me wrong. I think that, you know, when I've spoken to different crafts, people want all sorts of communities to be aware that this work is there and that it can be well paid, but it's not the sort of millionaire glamorous life that everybody sort of assumes it is. So I think it's worth keeping that in mind when we're talking about who's actually negotiating here. And I think the cutbacks that have been happening

in Hollywood amongst the streamers, it does add a very complicating dynamic. And because at the same time, they will be under pressure in that they want to make sure that in the streaming war that's happening, where there's all these new streaming platforms. They're competing for eyeballs. They're competing for audiences. They don't want to be without their hottest shows. They don't want to be without their next big hit because they need that to keep people subscribed. I think that's something that's going to be very influential as well. I mean, just before the holidays, it's going around town, different sort of events, and you talk to executives, and definitely people are talking about the risk of a strike, and starting to think already, you know, how they're going to manage it. You know, for some,

that means bringing productions forward so that they can complete them. For others, it might mean, you know, back in 2007, that led to the creation of The Apprentice. So, you know, gave Donald Trump his big leg up there in TV. So, you know, all sorts can come from the threat of a strike. The unexpected consequences. But no, I think you've explained that really well. And I think it is important to emphasize that, you know, just because we see some of these people, you know, on the red carpets at the Oscars or the Golden Globes doesn't mean that that's the case for everyone who works in this industry. And there's a lot of people who just work regular jobs, working on these various productions to make this all happen. And it's important to keep that in mind, especially when these negotiations are going on and these workers are trying to get a better deal so that they can better survive on the work that they're doing.

Anusha, this has been a really fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for having me on. Anusha Sakui is a reporter at the LA Times and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2022. You can follow her on Twitter at Anusha Sakui. You can follow me at at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at at Tech Won't Save UsUs. TechWon'tSaveUs is produced by Eric Wickham and is part of the Harbinger Media Network. And if you want to support

the work that goes into making it every week, you can go to patreon.com slash TechWon'tSaveUs and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.