We Did It! Ex-WGAW President Howard Rodman Weighs in on Screenwriters' New Contract
The guest contributor discusses our Guild's 'glorious' deal with the AMPTP, the cruelty of the companies that necessitated the strike, and the importance of collective bargaining in our culture
Today’s edition of 5AM StoryTalk features a guest contributor whom I’ve invited to discuss the Writers Guild of America’s new deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP): screenwriter, novelist, and former president of the WGA Howard A. Rodman.
The deal is glorious, and so damn gratifying. Unlike previous negotiations, there were significant if not groundbreaking gains in every single area: theatrical, streaming, ad-supported streaming, linear television, foreign residuals, writing teams. The ‘black box’ of the streamers has been cracked open: we now have a viewership-based streaming bonus. The Guild can regulate the use of AI on MBA-covered projects. And in terms of sheer dollars? The contract provides more than two and a half times as much money in writers’ pockets as the companies were willing to part with on May 1, 2023 when the strike began.
Despite all the gains — and they’re once-in-a-generation, exceptional, transformative gains — there’s nothing that writers achieved here that the companies could not have afforded to give on May 1st. They refused to see the value we create — for ourselves, for them, for the larger world — and saw us only as a cost. Their cold, callous, calculating decision to spend one hundred days away from the table, in hopes that the writers would soften, caused pain and suffering for tens of thousands of human beings. It’s reminiscent of nothing so much as Harry Lime in THE THIRD MAN, gazing down at humanity from the heights of a Ferris wheel:
“Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”
The companies that forced a 146-day strike will be called to account, in this world and perhaps the next.
What this contract asserts is quietly stunning: that even in a broken industry, a career as a writer is possible, is sustainable. That the thread did not snap on our watch. We do this for those who come after, just as those who came before provided for us.
It would be my hope that the WGA’s victory here — leaving no one behind — helps SAG-AFTRA achieve a contract that addresses their needs as this one addresses ours. Helps the labor movement realize once again something we’ve known and forgotten and remembered: that when we hold the line, we win. One small step for a Guild, one giant step for the notion that workers must receive a just and proportionate share of the wealth our labor creates.
You can learn more about Howard Rodman, his latest novel THE GREAT EASTERN, and subscribe to his newsletter here.
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