WGA board member Raphael Bob-Waksberg says the strike is “no guaranteed outcome” of ongoing contract negotiations, but calls on members to remember gains from past confrontations

The Writers Guild of America doesn’t want to strike, but if they have to, they will. That’s the gist of the guild’s latest video featuring WGA West board member and BoJack Rider Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg discusses the story of the gains the guild made by standing firm at the negotiating table – and striking when all else failed.

“I want to be very clear,” he says in the video, which was posted on the WGA website on Tuesday. “A strike is not a guaranteed outcome of this year’s negotiations. And we don’t want one. What we want is fair pay for making a product that brings big profits to the companies. And we want protections that enable us to build stable careers and lives.”

The studios, he said, “want to portray us as irrational for wanting these most basic things. They want us to forget about the benefits we get from standing together and instead worry about what it does to us can cost to stand up. The better question is what will it cost us if we don’t?”

The WGA is now in its final week of negotiations with the Alliance of Film and Television Producers before their current contract expires on May 1.

“In difficult negotiations with a powerful corporation, you do not win if you are nice, know the right people or have a particularly firm handshake,” says Bob-Waksberg. “None. What you can win depends directly on your influence. And just like when you negotiate your individual contract as a writer, our influence as a union depends on our willingness to walk away from a bad deal. “

“We would love for the studios to meet our reasonable demands, get a fair deal, and we can all continue to do what we do best: make art,” he said, but noted that “that’s our willingness to use our collective power.” as guild members who consistently brought profits to writers. Strikes gave us surplus. Strikes left us with our pension and health insurance funds. And when I say ‘she did,’ I mean we did didn’t have her because the studios wouldn’t give her to us, so the writers were forced to hold back and strike out to get her.”

Watch the full video here.

Referring to the WGA’s 100-day strike of 2007-2008, he said: “Some would have you believe that the strike was a failure, a vague and fruitless campaign to save DVD scraps or whatever. The truth is that because of this strike, the WGA gained jurisdiction over the internet, or what we now call streaming.”

In 2007, he said: “The studios put our work online. They streamed entire TV episodes with commercials. They sold episodes and movies on iTunes. They have benefited from our work on the Internet. Our union’s position at the time was: ‘You have to pay us for it.’ And the studio’s position was no. Now try to think where we would be if we just accepted that ‘no’.”

“Think about how TV and movies are online now – trying to keep everything in your head, every streaming show and every movie,” he said as he rattled off dozens of popular shows and movies. “Imagine if all this was done without WGA coverage. Half of all jobs for current series writers are streaming. Entire writing careers, the vast majority of my career, and I’ll bet a good chunk of yours. Imagine if none of this was automatically protected by a guild contract. Imagine all the work without WGA guaranteed minimums, balances or contributions to our pension and health plans.

“Backlogs of projects created for streaming, as a category, are the fastest growing variety the guild is accumulating. The balances we received during the strike, which have improved every three years since then, totaled $78 million in 2022. But before the strike, the studios bid zero.

“Imagine what the life of writers would be like today if writers had not run away from this bad business back then. But they did. Writers stopped working for a little over three months, securing a future for writers like me. And thanks to our fight, SAG-AFTRA and DGA were also able to get streaming coverage for their members.

“We showed our strength. And ten years later we did it again. During the 2017 negotiations, the studios wanted to drain the guild’s sick fund and save $10 million in the first year alone. This would have resulted in significant benefit cuts – guild members would have been kicked off their health plans and an across-the-board cut in our salaries to make up the difference. This was not a hypothetical worst case scenario. It was her best and last offer as the contract deadline approached.

“So how did we stop them? By reasoning, morally and appealing to their better angels? NO. We stopped them by reminding them of our power. We held a strike consent vote where we once again showed the strength of our solidarity by voting ‘yes’ with 96% of the votes cast.

“With our credible strike threat, we were able to get back into the game, protect our health care plan, and establish a boom standard in our MBA – another big win they didn’t want to give us, and all without going on strike. “

Earlier this month, 97.85% of WGA members voted to allow a strike if their leaders cannot reach a fair deal at the negotiating table.