America's Wealth Gap
A tentative deal was reached in LA putting an end to a writers’ strike that has gone for over 3 months. That's 12,000 movie and television writers that can return to work with a contract, deserving of the countless hours they picketed.
That's great news for unions in this country since media conglomerates are bigger and wield more power than most governments. Contentions remain surrounding profits made with new media (internet and cell phones) but for the most part, the union's hard work and sacrifice achieved most of their objectives.
I've long supported unions because I grew up with a Dad in a union. In industrial America, my Dad worked a blue-collar job in harsh conditions for extremely low pay in the beginning. Thanks to the union, improvements, like reasonable working hours, overtime pay and pensions improved. My Dad's experience has always been that unions helped a company compete and thrive. Most are extremely flexible, understanding and willing to bend if the company is in dire fiscal straights.
Unfortunately not all company's act like Southwest Airlines, which has long made employees part-owners via profit-sharing and stock options.
It was inevitable that I'd join a union as well and so I've been in one since 1993: NABET (National Association of Broadcasters, Electricians and Technicians). We can be just as passionate, aggressive and persistent should greedy shareholders try to take more than their fair share.
And based on the average earnings of a CEO, most of them make more in a year than their employees will make in a lifetime. According to a Business Week survey, last year, the average CEO earned $12.4 million, including salary, bonus and other compensation. That breaks down to $34,000 a day including Saturdays and Sundays. Absolutely crazy.
2 Comments:
The workers needing a union situation falls once more for me into that category of what 'should' be versus what 'really' is.
In an ideal world businesses would not exploit their workers. In a real world that's exactly what happens without a union, particularly in the film business.
I, for one, do not begrudge stars their multi-million dollar salaries since their performances can make or break a major movie and no producer is forced to hire them - it's his/her risk to do so and there's enormous risk in the film and tv business.
What has happened, however, with the advent of these huge salaries, however, is that it has meant less money for everyone else involved in making pictures or tv shows since there's only so much money to go around.
Yet without decent writers writing decent story lines, you can forget all the great performances in the world.
Good writers should be paid well and should participate in the profits of movies or tv shows or Internet downloads or DVDs if that's where their work is seen and experienced.
Sadly producers have shown that they no longer want writers to share in the profits or even be paid fairly for rewrites and other changes producers want after commissioning an initial story line.
The writers strike didn't come for reasons out of nowhere but for very real reasons which have to do with writers being able to pay their mortgages, put food on the table, pay for their kids' college educations. If a production continues to earn producers money after its initial release, it should continue to earn writers money as well. That should be a part of the social contract yet the truth is that it has to be an ironclad part of a legal contract.
I'm very happy they stuck it out so long and sincerely hope they reached most if not all of their goals.
I just thought I'd add that Nikki Finke of 'Deadline Hollywood'
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/
has had excellent coverage of the writers strike from the beginning.
She's played an important part keeping writers and others informed and discussing strike issues.
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