WGA writers look back at 2007-2008 strike for lessons to be applied to upcoming negotiations: ‘They don’t call it fog of war for nothing’

The WGA is preparing for upcoming contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, perhaps the most important in more than a decade.

It prompted a group of top writers to look back at the lessons learned from the 2007/2008 writers’ strike to see what they could apply to this year’s readings.

Angela Workman, author of The warden’s wifeChap Taylor, Consulting Producer at the blacklist, Holly Sorensen, creator of Stand up TV Series, Flint Wainess, Consulting Producer for The CW’s Mixed signals in the dark Writer Eric Tipton and Marc Guggenheim, co-creator and executive producer of Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow – all veterans of the 07/08 picket line – intervened before the negotiations on this issue.

“There is a lot of confusion about what the 2007-2008 strike did and didn’t do, and a lot of debate about what we can achieve in our upcoming negotiations,” Workman writes in the substack From The Trenches: Working Writers in Conversation. “We thought it might be helpful to review our experience.”

There are a number of topics on the table this time around, including the topic of waning relics in the streaming era, the proliferation of miniseries and shorter episode orders, as well as questions about feature film scripts and the topic of freelancing.

“We need to start this discussion by emphasizing that our business model in the industry is broken. The handful of multinational corporations that control entertainment pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars while championing the poverty of the creators who make their product,” writes Taylor.

But he also adds that “justified anger is not a bargaining chip” and that many of the “worst trends in the entertainment industry” cannot be addressed by the upcoming MBA.

“There is a real danger that our membership in a social media echo chamber will build pressure and lose sight of what we can actually achieve in negotiations.”

In November, the WKV convened its negotiating committee before the contract expired in early May. This group includes WGA West executive director David Young as chief negotiator, former WGA West presidents David A. Goodman and Chris Keyser as co-chairs, and Patric M. Verrone, WGA West president during Writers’ 100 Days 2007 was ‘strike -2008 , as one of the 24 members of the negotiating committee.

“The negotiating committee already has an impossible task ahead. The issues are so complex and the industry is in such a strange place. Our anger on all issues is justified, but we all need to keep our feet on the ground as much as possible. If fog is not our friend, then reality is,” Sorensen said.

Eric Tipton added that it was important not to fall for “a sanitized mythology” of the last strike.

“I’m also more than a little worried about the attitude – and it was widespread at the time too – hell I think I even believed it at the time – that the mere act of a strike is a victory in itself. That it’s a chance to buy a new t-shirt and retrace your steps while perhaps chatting about your next job. In reality, a strike is a failure. This means hardship and lost income for working writers who will never be replaced, and for thousands of other people who are not writers or leaders but depend on what we do for a living. The threat of a strike should always be the last resort,” he said.

The 2007/2008 strike relied heavily on DVD backlogs and the repurposing of material online, and while some gains were made, Tipton points out that much was also lost, including the cancellation of numerous blanket contracts and the death of licensed boda studios, reducing development. budgets and the elimination of the system of recognition of previous job title pay rates. “Whatever gains we made during this strike never equaled the millions of dollars in potential revenue that evaporated,” he said.

Guggenheim said the outcome of the strike was “very grim at best” in terms of streaming — Hulu, for example, didn’t launch until a month after the strike ended, and it took years for those types of services to transition. to switch to the original programming.

“Did we have to strike in 2007 to prevent us from meaningfully negotiating residuals until now? I honestly don’t care. Now that we’re here, we have to do it and hopefully we don’t need a strike for it. But we must use everything we have in our arsenal to avoid this; We need to think outside the box and not resort to all the old mythologies and tropes to do that,” he added.

There was talk of the WGA joining forces with the Directors Guild (DGA) and SAG-AFTRA to help seal a deal. “It seems insane not to team up with other guilds for maximum impact, and as far as I know we already are. I hope so. But in a year when we need a coordinated attack, to keep saying, ‘We can never work with the DGA,’ doesn’t help,” Guggenheim added.

As Taylor and Sorensen point out, it was the DGA that first gained jurisdiction over new media in January 2008, about a month before the end of the writers’ strike.

“These are the facts. The rest is fog,” Sorensen said.

“What we gained in that strike has to be weighed against what we lost and we lost A LOT. Writers lost jobs and deals and opportunities and time, and of course it was the strike that supercharged reality TV, like a strike now, would overload foreign and other kinds of “content,” Wainess noted. “Hopefully there won’t be a strike this time, but if there is absolutely no other way to improve our residue formula, I will support it. However, I do know that a strike will not “achieve the ability of writers and creators to create content without the companies”.

Workman, which is also behind functions such as Tall for David Fincher et al Hi Nancy because Stephen Colbert emphasized that not only writers are among the losers, but also crew members and restaurant employees are affected.

“No one seems to want to think about the wider consequences of being injured as a result of a strike. This time we just came out of a pandemic, on top of an ATA move that caused many writers to lose agents, jobs, and health care. Inflation is out of control. The price of groceries is crazy. A lot of people have problems, and I’m not just talking about writers,” she noted.

“It’s absolutely clear that tech-centric streamers don’t give a damn about our MBA. We’re losing profits and arrears. But do we have a strategy to recoup those losses or replace them with new revenue streams? Will the economic suffering of a strike be worth it – for *everyone*? When are we going to hit the wall this time and how will the most vulnerable among us survive after all we’ve been through?” she added.

Workman suggests a “public, honest and open conversation” without personal attacks.

One of the main issues this time is who exactly will conduct the negotiations; the likes of recently returned Disney CEO Bob Iger and Peter Chernin, who then ran News Corp, played key roles, as did a phalanx of senior agents and lawyers.

“This time, because of the ATA action, the agents can work against us to replace us with overseas clients. If ’07-’08 was finally settled with the help of back-channeling allies, then who are our allies today? The economics of the company changed dramatically for everyone. Agents have their own problems and with international content becoming what it is over the years, I don’t see much reason for these people to help us this time,” said Eric Tipton.

However, the next step is to establish a required pattern, the general goals of the guild for negotiation. It must then be approved by the WKV West Council and the WKV East Council before it is put to a vote of the members.

“I think everyone should always hope for the best and prepare for the worst in anything, so we have to keep our eyes open,” Tipton added.