Was Ellen Right To Cross The Writer's Picket Line? - Page 4
So, yes, aspiring scabs, it would be a great time to get started in screenwriting if you don't mind working for free, and watching other people profit from your work long after your one-time licensing fee is gone. But don't forget- everybody else (even the producers we're negotiating with right now) are unionized, too. They may love your scabby scripts today, but when the strike is over, you may find your career in the industry over completely.
Let's dissect this...if you worked for a factory, would you want to work your regular salary for your regular hours making your regular parts, but then a new state-of-the-art computerized vehicle comes out, and your boss wants you to make state-of-the-art parts for it...for free? Or say you are a checkout person at the local grocery store. Would you want to get paid for working your normal hours doing your specified job, but if a product comes through that is "new and improved", you wouldn't get paid for the time you spent handling it? Or imaging you're a house painter...you get paid for painting white houses, but not paid for painting green houses? Or if you're a landscaper, you get paid for planting flowers, but not evergreen trees?
But, think about this...every strike that is put on in this country hurts more than just the strikers. When members of an auto company strike, it hurts more than just the company they are striking against. It hurts those in other shops, perhaps non-union ones, who make parts for the striking workers. It hurts those who sell cars. It hurts those who want to buy cars. People are put out of work who have nothing to do with the original strike. How is this strike different than any other that goes on in this country, other than it is put on by those in the entertainment industry, and the picket lines are manned by people who make more than I'm liable to see in a five-year period?
And let's talk bout that for a minute. There is the idea out there that writers in Hollyweird are paid extravagant amounts of money, and some are. But figures I've seen range from anywhere from $5000 to $200,000 a year for writers. And I'd guess that's about right, considering when you're new you're starting at the low end of the scale, just like any other job. Then you have production people, who make anywhere from $10,000 to $75,000 a year. In the Midwest, $75K is nothing to sneeze at, but out in California it's propbably hard to make a decent living on that much, let alone save money for the future or for such a time as when you might be unemployed. So for those on the low end of the totem pole, Internet and DVD residuals are probably the difference between making the mortgage payment and losing their house.
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