Solidarity works
Negotiators for Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America reached a breakthrough agreement after five straight days of negotiations — a tentative deal to end a strike that has halted most TV and film scriptwriting in the country.
The terms of the agreement were not immediately shared by the WGA, which said in a statement Sunday night that the deal was “exceptional,” adding that it included “meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”
The union said it was immediately suspending picketing, though its more than 11,000 members were warned not to return to work until the deal is put into the language of a contract, then approved by WGA leaders and general membership in coming days. “We are still on strike until then,” the statement said.
But the deal stillmarks the most hopeful sign of progress since May, when the WGA and a consortium of major studios and streaming services failed to renew their old contract. The sides were divided over issues such as pay for writers and the use of artificial intelligence to create scripts. The WGA strike has lasted nearly 150 days, making it one of Hollywood’s longest labor-strike disputes.
Jennifer Rubin wants to make sure people understand why striking writers and autoworkers are so pissed at how insane pay for top executives in the auto and entertainment industries has become (emphasis mine):
First, both confront companies whose chief executives’ salaries have gone wild. The Detroit News reports: “Ford CEO Jim Farley received nearly $21 million in total compensation last year,” while the Detroit Free Press finds that Carlos Tavares — CEO of Chrysler parent company Stellantis — “had total compensation of $24.8 million.” And at the top of the heap, according to Automotive News, General Motors’ Mary Barra earned almost $29 million in 2022.
CBS News put that in perspective: “Overall CEO pay at the Big Three companies rose 40% from 2013 to 2022, according to [the Economic Policy Institute].” Barra makes “362 times more than the typical GM worker, while Tavares makes 365 times more, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Farley at Ford makes 281 times more, filings show.”
Put differently, between 1978 and 2021, “executive compensation at large American companies increased by more than 1,400 percent,” Politico recently noted, citing the left-leaning EPI. “It climbed 37 percent faster than stock market growth and 18 percent faster than average full-time worker pay over the same period, the EPI analysis found.” It’s hard to tell workers they’re asking too much or don’t appreciate the fraught economic picture when CEOs are gorging themselves at the salary trough.
The same is true for entertainment companies. Yes, there are a few hugely paid actors (and athletes), but the Bureau of Labor Statistics “estimated the median actor pay was $17.94 per hour.”
Rubin adds:
You can make all the arguments you want about the labor market for chief executives and their responsibility for billions in earnings. But major companies cannot expect average workers to accept that this is simply the way things are. Management and shareholders need to understand that the gross imbalance between CEOs and average workers is going to result in labor unrest. And if the chief executives’ companies are losing tens of millions because of strikes, perhaps that should be taken into account during their next salary negotiation.
The economic inequality endemic in what some like to call “late-stage capitalism” is one of those situations that the elite will ignore and ignore and ignore until they find themselves facing the torches and pitchforks Nick Hanauer warned of nearly a decade ago. “Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.”
“Why, oh why, are the common folk are so mad at us?”