The WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike
Photo by Mario Tama

We’re into the second half of July. The striking arts workers who are members of the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) continue their strike, and have been joined by members of The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA).   

I thought I’d take a little time to gather some information to share with others who haven’t had the chance to inform themselves of what is going on.

The issues include fair pay and compensation, ending labor exploitation and labor theft, the threats presented by AI, and the tremendous wealth created by digital streaming that is not shared by those who “own” the delivery platforms with those who wrote and performed and created the work feeding that bonanza. Here is a good breakdown of the issues.

Attitude among “regular” people (is there really such a thing?), who daily partake of the art created by these individuals, sometimes leans towards resentment: What are they complaining about? They get to work in a great industry, don’t they? They get to rub shoulders with celebrities and famous artists, right? They want glamour AND fair pay?  They probably already make 100x what I earn as a (fill in the blank). The truth is that so few of us in this country earn a living wage that it is mind-boggling. Arts workers suffer low wages in a far-reaching way that is often concealed by the perceived glamour of the industry.

The way striking workers find themselves maligned in the media hasn’t changed in generations.  The narrative usually shapes around things like this:  The workers are already spoiled, already over-demanding, already getting more than their fair share and are being unreasonable.  They should be grateful for the opportunities provided to them.  Others would happily take their place and keep their mouths shut except to express that gratitude.

Well, the realities are not to be found in the illusions created by the executives of the corporations and production companies and streaming services.

Marissa Messiano informs us who the Writers Guild of America is:

“The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) was first founded in 1933, and almost all television and film writers (along with writers of some scripted podcasts and other digital media) are members of the WGA. It’s the WGA’s Basic Agreement contract that writers work under.”

She also explains who the writers are striking against: “On the other side of the negotiation table is The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a group that represents over 350 production companies in the country, including Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios, Paramount, Netflix, Walt Disney Studios, Amazon, Sony, and many others.”

What is the Writers Guild of America demanding? Read the document here. 

Messiano says, “There are a few themes within the writer’s requests that led to the WGA strike: asking for better pay and stability for writers, restricting the use of artificial intelligence in writing, and improving pay and residuals for streaming content – something that has significantly fallen behind since the introduction of streaming.”

You can read Messiano’s whole article, which details the reasons for the requests that WGA is making here.

You can read more about this strike and its issues here, in an article by Jess Weatherbed.

Some of what she writes, “The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing,” said the WGA West on Monday. “From their refusal to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to the creation of a ‘day rate’ in comedy variety, to their stonewalling on free work for screenwriters and on AI for all writers, they have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.”

What about the SAG/AFTRA strike?  First, it is the first time in over 60 years that this combined union has struck their industries. James Poniewozik, TV Critic for the NYT, writes about it here

He identifies that big problem about narrative I spoke about above: “SAG-AFTRA, the union representing TV and film actors, joined the writers in a walkout over how Hollywood divvies up the cash in the streaming era and how humans can thrive in the artificial-intelligence era. With that star power comes an easy cheap shot: Why should anybody care about a bunch of privileged elites whining about a dream job?”

Poniewozik points out what most of us who have faced labor exploitation already know: that the “star system” of high pay for a few holds the majority of workers in all occupations at poverty levels of income. In the SAG/AFTRA story, those poverty workers are the background actors. “The lower-paid actors who make up the vast bulk of the profession are facing simple dollars-and-cents threats to their livelihoods. They’re trying to maintain their income amid the vanishing of residual payments, as streaming has shortened TV seasons and decimated the syndication model. They’re seeking guardrails against A.I. encroaching on their jobs.There’s also a particular, chilling question on the table: Who owns a performer’s face? Background actors are seeking protections and better compensation in the practice of scanning their images for digital reuse.”  And, by “reuse” the issue is how, or if, an actor’s image can be scanned and used into perpetuity for a single day’s pay.  And what do background actors make for a day’s work? As of July 2023, the average hourly pay for a background actor’s work is $12.63/hour.  

Bottom line, these jobs have been turned into gig jobs in unsustainable ways for human beings, and now there is the threat of AI digitizing and, essentially, stealing the writing, the images, the being-ness of all of these artists and their work.

Fran Drescher, the current president of SAG/AFTRA made a speech that has gone viral. In explanation of the strike, she makes the point that all workers, across all disciplines and occupations are facing the same exact kinds of “unpay” and exploitation, unsustainable compensation, lack of living wages. Here is the text of what Dresher said.

Here is a video of her speech.

Lest any of us think that the more high-profile actors face little hardship, the internet offers plenty of other stories from actors about their financial realities. In an interview with Bethy Squires, Kimiko Glenn talks about how many of the actors on “Orange is the New Black” continued to have “day jobs” and “side gigs” even at the height of the show’s success.

According to Glenn, most of the actors on the show, even at a point when they were internationally famous, still couldn’t afford to take a cab to set, still held down jobs like bartending.  Can we all admit that this is absolutely insane?

The decision to strike is never made easily.  It actually creates more hardship while the works are fighting for better circumstances. This is especially true when part of the strategy of the opposite side is to drag out negotiations and starve out the already-underpaid strikers. What does the strike mean for actors? What is required, and what is prohibited? Andrew Dalton explains in his article.

The strike rules go far beyond “acting”.  “They are not allowed to make personal appearances or promote their work on podcasts or at premieres. They are barred from doing any production work including auditions, readings, rehearsals, voiceovers or wardrobe fittings. Newly minted Emmy nominees can’t publicly make their case for votes, nor appear at the ceremony, which is planned for September but is likely to be seriously scaled back or delayed.

They are instead expected to spend their days on picket lines, outside the corporate headquarters and production hubs of studios. This is no vacation. 

How does this combined strike impact the industry?  And how will the viewers experience the strike’s impact? Dalton says, “Actors joining writers on strike will force nearly every U.S.-based show or film that hasn’t already been shut down into hiatus.  Upcoming shows are likely to be delayed indefinitely, and some movie releases will pushed back.”  Where the writers’ strike had something more like an immediate effect on late-night and comedy programs, it may take a while longer to see the impact on scripted television series. Production has been shut down on some shows, like “Stranger Things,” “Hacks,” or “Yellow Jackets.” Release dates have been pushed back or placed on hold for series and movies and shows.

So, given the way the writers and actors and other industry professionals are being treated, how do WE, the people who pay for streaming content, buy movie tickets, watch TV and movies and series support the people without whom there would BE no TV, movies and series?  Should we be boycotting movie theatres, cancelling our streaming? Not yet, we’re told.  This is not yet seen as “crossing a picket line”

Narrowing that question a bit, how do we artists, working in publishing, teaching creative writing or screenwriting or filmmaking respond? How do artists in ALL disciplines respond? We certainly can identify with the struggles created by the ever-increasing power inequalities between the artists and the owners of the delivery platforms/spaces — whether that is a music streaming platform, a gallery system, publishing inequalities, academic gig-i-fication — Are any of us receiving living wages? How do we support our fellow artists? I suggest that it is time for us to amp up the ways and places where we share information about these strikes. We can use our own social media sites to “speak” in support and to share the truth about the struggles. We can even use our professional membership organizations to speak in support of these strikes.

I would suggest that we ALL be prepared to join the strike, because there may be a time when our efforts have to be gathered and added to this fight. We may reach a point when our solidarity with these artists has to be brought to bear.  We can exert enormous pressure on the powerful studios with our own consolidated actions in order to make our own voices heard, in order to join a fight that, as Fran Dresher said, is a fight that connects all workers, all those who have suffered exploitation. None of us can afford to see this strike action fail.

Arts for Assets Sake

What’s Art Good For? Apparently, for collateral.

It is long known that the “art market” is filled with speculators and asset hounds who are hoovering up the “hot” artists not for aethestic purposes but as investment. The horror stories of what that has done to the art world abound. But I confess, I had to read Georgina Adam’s article, “In Debt We Trust” in The Art Newspaper several times before it began to sink in and I started to realize, with horror…..My God…..this is really happening.

Those same investors who have been turning the art world into a kind of Thunderdome are now part of an increasing trend: Art-secured lending. What does this mean? It means that the owners of art-as-asset are now borrowing against that art in yet another layer of frenzy – creating a bourgeoning market for lenders smokin’ hot to get in on the action.

Adam writes, “Warhol or a Wool hanging on your wall may give you great pleasure, but it used to be that art gave you no monetary return—unless you sold it….No longer. Today that work of art can remain on your wall and at the same time give you cash in hand, allowing you to buy more art, inject some money into your business, cover a guarantee at auction or pay off an urgent tax demand.”

If you have any doubt that this is becoming a huge market, “…according to a report published last year by Deloitte and ArtTactic, in 2017 the global total of loans outstanding against art was eye-popping: between $17bn and $20bn.”

Piles and stacks of money – coins and US dollars.

Evan Beard, who is a national art services executive at US Trust claims that “the market” of art-buyers are less likely to purchase art for aesthetic purposes, but as what he called a “strategic asset”.

Aside from the overwhelming nausea and disgust I feel toward the kind of people who treat the creative effort of the arts community as little more than a stock option, I have questions about what this means for the artist him/herself. It has long disgusted me that art is sold, resold, sold again, auctioned — and that the rising prices of any given piece of art do not benefit the creator of that work of art, but those who “own” it through purchase. It seems to me that some portion — if not the lion’s share — of the increasing value of a work of art should go to the artist or his/her estate. I know that this is distasteful to those who don’t want to monetize art at all — and I understand that completely. But my argument exists within the boundaries of a rapacious capitalist economy, fueled by greed, where it seems that the same, very few, elite at the top of the food chain are the ones who see ALL the increase. If we are forced, as artists, to live in this world, why shouldn’t there be new kinds of contracts upon the sale of a piece of work that withhold a certain portion of any financial increase for the artist alone?

Another question: If these purchasers and speculators of art can borrow against the value of their collection, can an ARTIST borrow against the value of his/her own unsold work? Or is such financialization reserved only for those 1%-ers who play in this game of capitalist roulette?

I’d love to hear from you about this. As visual artists, what do you feel about what has happened to the art market? As collectors, how do you feel about the direction that art-speculation is going?

The Artist’s Dilemma: Refuse the Addiction of Social Media or Fail at Self-Promotion?

The common belief these days is that, without constant presence and self-promotion on social media platforms, an artist is doomed to obscurity. It can’t be denied that the platforms themselves have encouraged this thinking. But how much success can you expect? Does a constant promotional presence on Facebook, for instance, guarantee that you and your work become more recognizable, and most important, that your posts reach those who want to engage with your artwork or your activities?

Drew Zeiba takes on this topic in his article, “Can You Make It As an Artist in 2018 Without Constantly Plugging Yourself on Instagram?” on Vulture Just what is an artist’s role in society, and does that role include the endless need to self-promote? Zeiba says, “There is a long tradition of artists refusing to play the self-promotion game. Isa Genzken and David Hammons are famous for preferring not to talk to the press; Stanley Brown destroyed his early work and his own image. But in today’s globalized art world, in which collectors buy work based on pictures scrolled through on their phones, isn’t logging off forever rather self-defeating? Refusing to be an artist-as-public figure in the era of social media seems almost reckless — like willful career suppression, if not suicide.” Many cite the addictive quality of social media, and how much time and energy can be wasted on these platforms that is best used in making art.

On the other hand, as Zeiba says, there are those success stories that underscore the uneasy feeling that no artist can afford to unplug entirely: “Brad Phillips is in many ways the poster boy for why artists should be on Instagram. Thanks to the platform, he got a book deal with a prestigious British publisher, mounted solo shows in East Hampton and Oslo, and made direct sales by DM (which means he didn’t have to give a gallery 50 percent).”

But as Phillips himself points out, it is a “double-edged sword”. His article “How Instagram is Changing the Art World,” on Vice talks about the love/hate relationship that he, and other artists, have with Instagram and other social media platforms. Phillips writes, “I have, through Instagram, sold a great deal of work privately to people. I’ve had a solo show in Oslo at Bjarne Melgaard’s gallery. I’ve been included in many group shows. I had a solo show in East Hampton at Harper’s Books. Entirely due to Instagram I’ve had a hardcover book of my drawings published by a reputable English art book imprint. None of the above “developments” in my career, none of the sales, were facilitated by my gallery in New York. That’s not the fault of the gallery. The art world right now is a youth-fetishizing cannibalistic death cult of speculation and interior design masked as progressive painting.”

What is the role of the gallery in this new world? In the past, galleries offered validation, support, protection, promotion. It was the gallery that made the connection to the buyers. For that service they often required 50% of any sales, which while it sounds high to the outside world, was the only way that the gallery could be maintained — especially in an essential city like New York, where real estate costs are quite high and the space for a gallery is an expensive proposition. The gallery owner also needed to make his/her own living through the sale of the artist’s work.

The curators of creativity are being muscled out by these social media platforms. Who, now, is the arbiter of taste in the “art market”? Phillips, again: “Most collectors buy what other people buy, and what other people buy is what is happening right now, today, and if Instagram is anything, it’s an encapsulation and display of the most urgent present moment. Knowing that they can cut out the middle man, knowing that artists will be happy to sell work privately means collectors can arrive at the same point for half the price.” The point worth emphasizing here is that collectors can arrive at the same point for half the price That means that the artist is no better off in terms of profit from sales. It also means that the artist now must be his/her own promotor and curator, a job that was formerly a full-time job for someone else, someone who was devoted to being the social arbiter of artist’s work — and most importantly, who had a more extensive understanding of the artist’s work, and how it was positioned within the history of art movements and styles — a larger picture and a much more erudite approach. That, it can be argued, is a great loss. And, with the artist taking on the work of promotion, where is the time to grow and mature and create as an artist?

Obviously, this is not a new issue. Stephen Sondheim addressed it in Sunday in the Park With George — this situation where creative people find that much of their time is spent in doing everything BUT making art. In “Putting it Together“, illustrates the experience of the creative “market” and its demands on the creative person.

The digital world, however, presents other problems — one being the security of the artwork. Much like the problems with piracy that have plagued the musician or the writer, there is the issue of image theft for the artist who puts work on these platforms. Phillips bemoans this for himself and his colleagues, “But a key issue artists are coming up against now, myself included, is the loss of control over the imagery we post. Our work is screenshot, then disseminated without consent. In an age where a JPEG has almost as much value as the physical object, this is problematic. Artists I’ve known have had their work taken off Instagram and included in publications without being compensated, never mind notified. But at least there their work is identified as their own. Straight up duplication and theft is equally common. I’ve seen my own art recirculated back to me without credit or worse, credited to a stranger. Some people think artists should be flattered by imitation but in the end it just makes it harder to use those images later for artwork and there’s the risk of being accused of appropriating your own work after it’s recycled and reposted on the internet thousands of times.”

Another issue is the erratic, unfathomable application of censorship rules on these platforms. Many artists complain of having work flagged, or removed, or having accounts taken down completely even when the work does not violate whatever the terms of the platform might be. There are often no humans with whom you can speak. There are often no clear reasons for the haphazard ways in which the “rules” are applied. Censorship, it appears is visited upon women artists much more often than upon men, for instance.

Zeiba speaks about the response of artist Jake Borndal, who quit Instagram, citing several issues, addiction being among them. He quit Instagram when he quit smoking. Borndal also wants to remind everyone that these platforms, in particular Instagram, which seems to lend itself so well to the visual, is anything BUT a creative space. Writes Zeiba, “It is a space bound by certain social, aesthetic, and user-agreement constraints, all of them prescribed either top-down by Instagram design or policy, or more amorphously by cliquish consensus among a segment of users, in turn shaping the kind of content that might be made and shared.”

Bottom line: for the so-called benefits that might be offered through the use of these social media platforms, the loss — of time, of creative freedom, of quiet and personal rumination time — may just be too high. What does that mean for artists in these current times? Might there be other ways in which artists can find each other?….can find their audience? One suggestion: might we begin to think seriously about creating our OWN social media platforms where artists, writers, musicians, performers, can gather, can curate the work of each other, can provide a sort of gallery/performance space? Might there then be the possibility to address such issues as piracy, since these platforms are created by, run by and meant to benefit the artists themselves?

The Precarious Artist

Musicians performing in Nashville. (Alamy Stock Photo)

A stunning vote to oust the current president of the Musician’s Union and replace the leadership was prompted by grave concerns about the on-going difficulties of a musician’s professional life. Michael Cooper of the New York Times writes, “The leadership team of the New York local of the musicians’ union — the union’s largest local in the nation — was voted out of office on Tuesday in a stunning upset, amid concerns over the underfunded musicians’ pension plan and broader changes facing music, the original gig economy.”

Valid concerns about the underfunded pension plan is what sparked the vote to change leadership; it also sparks larger questions and concerns about the ways in which union representation has failed to keep up with the needs of membership — not just with the musician’s union, but with all unions. Artists have long lived the life of “gig economy” practitioners, and unions are meant to protect them from the many ways in which a capitalist culture undervalues, underpays and exploits their work. Fears that union representation is out of touch with its membership are well-founded; it is one of the reasons that younger artists are opting out of union membership.

The newly-elected president of the Musicians Union, Adam Krauthamer, was elected with a robust 67% of the vote. Before his election, he founded Musicians for Pension Security, out of a growing concern about mismanagement of the union’s pension funds.

The widespread insecurities of life in the arts cannot be off-set by unions which fail to ferociously guard the well-being of their membership. Addressing such problems is essential in an economy that makes survival of society’s artists even more at risk. Looking beyond the issues with unresponsive unions, it isn’t hard to identify problems with the financial well-being of visual artists, writers, poets, photographers…..In a society that refuses to adequately support its artists, that leaves us to try and protect ourselves. We here at Hidden River Arts welcome ideas and comments about ways in which we can all support each other – how might the artistic class (I don’t use the phrase “creative class” since that term has been usurped by the business community) build their own networks, inter-disciplinary networks, in order to support and protect each other? What sorts of projects and protections might we establish to protect our fellow artists?