With rare exceptions, labor disputes tend to get very little media attention.  A strike at your local supermarket only impacts the workers and the customers at the supermarket, and the customers are able to shift to another supermarket.  And the ones that would have major disruptions on major products tends to get resolved quickly.  A major car manufacture and the UAW know that a long-term strike benefits neither side; so both sides work hard to resolve things without a strike.

But a strike in the entertainment industry is different.  The strike gets front and center attention quickly — a strike in sports means that games are not played; a strike in movies/tv means that nothing new gets produced and only shows/movies that are already completed can be released.  But there is no readily available replacement.  Strikes tend to be industry-wide.  So it’s not just the Tennessee Titans that are unable to field a team, but every other team in the NFL too.  Likewise, it’s not just Saturday Night Live which is unable to broadcast a new show, but every other live scripted show.  And since people are used to seeing these shows/sporting events on a regular basis, the loss of the content is instantly noticed.  But, while the networks and leagues would like to not have the shutdown, they know that their customers will come back when things restart.  So “management” can cope with  the temporary disruption of a strike to some extent.  And the workers also know that the industry will be back in full force when the strike ends.  While there may be some lost paychecks, if they have banked some money in advance of the strike, the workers know that their jobs will probably be there in two to three months.   (Of course, the disruption might kill a particular show or movie, but there will be another show or movie around to hire the workers, and the loss of a season in the prime of their careers will have some negative impact on the career earnings of athletes.)

For all that screenwriters live an entirely different universe than most other workers. the current strike shares themes with the strikes in less glamourous income with two common issues being at the center of the dispute.

The first dispute concerns pay.  In every labor dispute, a key part of the discussion is how to divide the revenue pie between workers and owners.  In the entertainment industry, the product is intellectual property which can be resold multiple times.  This contrasts to a car or computer in which the manufacturer gets to sell the product one time.  And over the years, the companies and the unions have worked out that the “talent” (whether we are talking screenwriters, editors, directors, actors, songwriters, session musicians, or lead singers) will get a share of all of the sales (typically referred to as royalties in the book and music industry and residuals in the movie and television industry).  Over the years, however, technology has changed how the product is distributed.  Fifty years ago, movies would first be released to the local theater and sold to broadcast stations — initially the national networks and then to local stations via syndication.  Then around forty years ago, cable and the videotape industry started which gave another revenue source.  And contracts had to be negotiated to establish what part of the cable and videotape (and then DVD) sales would go to the talent.  Now, shows are distributed by streaming services — either initial broadcast or later rebroadcasts.  And the issue is what part of that revenue stream will go to the talent.

The second part of the dispute concerns job security in light of technological changes.  Automation provides a significant benefit to management.  Automation has increased productivity as more can be produced with fewer workers.  And unions concerned with protecting their membership want to keep as many members employed as possible.  In the entertainment industry, the big technological challenge to the members’ jobs is artificial intelligence.  In more mainstream industries, the work has involved routine tasks.  Routine tasks were the low hanging fruit for machines to replace human beings.  But, for the entertainment industry, we are ultimately talking about creative work.  How to make something different and (somewhat) original.   While things are changing fast, my perception is that AI is not yet there.  Perhaps an AI program could write a short basic plot for a show from a quick concept.  (For example, for a medical show let’s have a patient suffering from a rare disease and another suffering from cancer.  The AI, knowing the shows characters could perhaps give a summary of which doctors would be involved with each patient and what the doctors would be doing.)  But you would still need screenwriters to work out the dialogue in a way that flowed well and would fit the characters and the general approach of the show along with the camera shots.  But that is today.  And the screenwriters are worried about next year and the year after that for the life of the current contract.  In plain terms, they want the contracts to keep studios from being able to use AI to write scripts.

The networks have one big advantage in the current round of negotiations.  The last strike started in the fall.  For the broadcast networks, that meant that the writers had finished their work on eight or so episodes.  Especially for serialized shows, a strike at that point meant an indefinite delay in finishing up plot lines that were in the middle of the story.  For some shows, the need to preemptively cut plot lines short caused serious damage to the fans’ enjoyment of the show and led to that shows premature cancellation.  This year, the strike is occurring as most of the network shows are done with filming for the season.  If the strike becomes extended, the fall season might be delayed.  (The last major strike saw the networks relying on more reality competition shows and rebroadcasts to fill the gaps until new shows could be produced.)  But that is a less significant impact than having to stop a show in the middle and restart three or four months later.  With the exception of the COVID season of 2019-20, shows tend to plan a natural breaking point at the end of each season and the delay between one season and the next is expected by the fans.  Since a show being pushed back to a midseason start is already a possibility, the delay caused by this strike should not harm any current show.

For now, it seems from public opinion polling that most people identify with the screenwriters in this battle.  That differs from most strikes by athletes.   While well-paid compared to less glamorous industries, the starting writer is not making over a million dollars per year.  So it is easier to see the writers as ordinary employees being screwed over by management.  And it should be clear to most that the writers who have not yet made it to Best Screenplay at the Oscars status really benefit from union membership.  If they had to negotiate one-on-one with management, none of them would be getting residuals from streaming or rebroadcasts (income which can be nice five to ten years from now if they are having problems finding a job).  Maybe that will remind the average worker why it is important to belong to a union and lead to more support for pro-union legislation.