The writers' strike has been shaking Hollywood since last May 2. More than three months later, there is still no end in sight. Made up of some 11,000 members, the Hollywood Writers Guild (WGA) seeks improvements in the wages of its workers, especially with regard to remuneration for the distribution of its content on streaming platforms- and to regulate the uses of artificial intelligence, among other issues. In addition, they affirm that they cannot pay rent in the cities that they work while the CEOs of the companies amass millions of dollars with the series and characters they have created.
Some demands are made by film and television producers (grouped in the AMPTP, Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers) which were joined by the Hollywood Actors Union (SAG-AFTRA) in a strike that began on July 14. A strike of actors and screenwriters of such magnitude has not coincided for 63 years and the economic losses are expected to be heart-stopping. The latest counter offer from the AMPTP to the scriptwriters for a new contract does not satisfy the union, which has called it "insufficient".
For its part, the actors union asks the leaders of the Hollywood studios to intervene to reach an agreement for the realization of a new collective agreement. The inactivity in the mecca of cinema has forced the cancellation of filming, postponement of premieres and the absence of interpreters in the promotion of the films. But, what is the situation of scriptwriters and actors in our country? “All the demands of the American screenwriters can be extended here. There are always reasons for the strike. What they claim has to do with the precariousness of our work, the intermittency or the lack of copyright, although the American legal system is a little different from ours. There, to be able to work as a screenwriter, you have to be part of the union. otherwise you cannot work. So if the union says it's going to strike, they all go on strike. Here it would be different because the pressure capacity is less, but we have a collective agreement frozen since 2017 and there is a desire to fight as well”, Carlos de Pando, member of the Board of Directors of ALMA, the Spanish scriptwriters union, explains to this newspaper. It is made up of more than 800 film and television scriptwriters.
De Pando maintains that this strike "was inevitable" because "it had been ruminating for many months" and the reasons "were much stronger than those of the previous strike, between 2007 and 2008." At that time, the writers demanded that the companies adapt their conditions to the changes in the DVD boom stage and the beginning of streaming, since this multiplied the viewings of their series and films exponentially. “The most precarious thing is that we are hired almost for days, they can fire us from one day to the next, salaries have dropped and that before we did series for Spain and now for the whole world. If you see them in 200 countries, one should think that since the profit generated for the platforms is much higher, the salaries should increase. But not only do they not increase but they are reduced. That added to the intermittency of our work makes us live a lot from copyright and with the platforms it is being reduced. We charge much less than we did before”, laments this writer of series such as Aída, The Ministry of Time or ¡García! . He points out that in the US, 80% of screenwriters earn the minimum wage: “People who do very well live very well, but the majority live much worse and have to do it from those copyrights, which are called residuals there. ”.
“I think that if there is precariousness or not in the world of the script, it will depend on who you ask. I suppose there are established creators and writers with years of experience who can make a living from writing. It is not my case, nor the case of my partner. To live we have several jobs, we dedicate ourselves to teaching, advising or acting as script doctors in projects of others. We also write our own,” explains Belén Funes, director and co-writer with Marçal Cebrian of La hija de un ladrón, for which she won the Gaudí for Best Screenplay, among other awards, and the Goya for Best New Director. “We have not managed to make writing our life support alone,” adds Funes. We work on very authorial projects that no one entrusts to us and therefore we do not have, for example, a platform behind us that gives us support. We live the strike in Hollywood with expectation and why not, with great admiration. They are fighting for their rights and for the wealth generated by the medium to be distributed fairly. And here, in Spain, that subject is still pending”.
The threat of Artificial Intelligence is another great concern, because "it jeopardizes our work and especially the conditions of our work," says De Pando. “If the platforms said: 'I ask an AI for an idea and then I hire scriptwriters to rewrite it, the salaries and conditions we would have would be much worse than if the idea were ours, which is an excuse to pay us less and not Let's just say copyright, which would be stolen from us for sure”. In his opinion, "the audiovisual bubble has not burst but it has been reduced a lot, but there are still a lot of CEO's and contracted producers on the platforms who charge an outrageous amount and what suffers are the salaries of the workers ”. In any production, the script is basic: “The only one who creates from a blank page is the scriptwriter. It is a vocational job, artistically inspired and if you see that every time you do it for less, it is very frustrating and makes you want to stand up”.
He warns that "the situation worsens with the passage of time" and that if the strike lasts beyond October, all the season premieres will go to at least 2024. "It will not be possible to release, promote, write or work . Who is going to stand the test of time in a strike? The worker who is without a salary or the platform that continues to have constant benefits because it has a catalog to pull from? The strike is very frustrating and it is difficult for the workers and the weakest people in the chain, but it is also hopeful because if agreements and negotiations are reached they will establish a framework from which to build. If it is achieved in the US, it will have an impact throughout the world because it will be a benchmark on which to base ourselves when it comes to negotiating with us”. De Pando believes that the American union has a lot of power and that the adhesion of the actors will be "very decisive." If I trust that the pressure of the strike and the unions will work? Yes. I don't think we'll reach the best port possible, but one where at least we're not where we are now”.
From the Union of Actors and Actresses they are very clear that what happens in the United States will have consequences here. “When they sneeze in the United States, we catch a cold,” says Daniel Albadalejo, interpreter and union action secretary for the Union of Actors and Actresses. He affirms that the strike is being followed “with great attention because the paradigms of our trade have changed, especially since the pandemic with the development of streaming platforms. The business model has changed and must be reorganized and regulated with the current model”. If before a series was seen practically only in Spain, “now if it premieres on any platform it reaches a lot of countries. These visits generate intellectual property rights that are paid for in Spain. What they ask for is transparency when it comes to how these intellectual property rights are established”.
Albadalejo emphasizes that in the entertainment world situations are common, but then there is the legislation of each country. “In the US, actors have to earn $26,000 a year to qualify for health insurance. 87% of union members do not reach that annual amount”, actress Caroline Renard denounced recently on social networks. “It's a good thing here that social security covers us, otherwise it would be catastrophic,” says Albadalejo. In her opinion, the Hollywood strike “is realistic because it is made for the vast majority of those who make up the trade. It is not a strike for the big stars. It is a strike that affects the middle class, people who are not as well known and who cannot pay their mortgage or health insurance.
The actor believes that in the US the protesters are asking for something "fair and it is something that will affect us to the extent that it will be a starting point for legislation that will change and that will mean global agreements." He declares himself “optimistic” about an agreement on the other side of the pond, although it will take a while: “We are nothing without production, but neither is production without us. We work for the viewer but we have to have decent conditions and decent benefits so that the viewer wants to continue consuming”.
