From Argentina to New Zealand, support for the Writers Guild of America is officially going global.
Wednesday marks an International Day of Solidarity for the writers strike that is being branded “Screenwriters Everywhere,” with events planned in major cities including Paris and London.
The Writers Guild of America has enlisted members from the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, Federation of Screenwriters in Europe and UNI Global Union to demonstrate global support for the union’s strike against Hollywood’s largest producers. The unprecedented rallying behind the WGA is especially relevant during this strike given the globalization of content, and the fast-growing international outposts of many “struck” companies, such as Netflix and Prime Video.
The WGA’s strike against the major studios and streaming platforms, which are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), began on May 2. The guild’s demands include higher wages for TV and film writers, protections around the use of AI in content production and guaranteed levels of staffing and weeks of employment on TV series to address systemic changes in episodic production.
“Screenwriters Everywhere” will see pickets and other actions carried out in more than 20 countries. They will take place at locations including the Netflix offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the European Parliament in Brussels; the offices of Apple and Amazon in Toronto, Canada; FoxTelecolombia in Colombia; the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France; the Tel Aviv Central Library in Israel; Estudios Churubusco in Mexico; Netflix offices in Seoul, South Korea; Filmoteca de Catalunya and Valenciana in Spain; the Riksdag in Sweden; and Leicester Square in London, U.K.
Social media takeovers are also being planned by India’s Screenwriters Association, Spain’s Sindicato de Guionistas and New Zealand’s Writers Guild, among others. (For the full list of planned activities, click here.)
The London protest, organized by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, will kick off at 1 p.m. local time and will feature appearances by writers including Jack Thorne (“His Dark Materials”), Russell T Davies (“It’s A Sin”), Alice Nutter and Simon Beaufoy (“The Full Monty”) and Dennis Kelly (“Together”). Unions such as Equity, Bectu, the Musicians’ Union and the NUJ will also support WGA members in the U.K.
“Everything starts with the writer, and we need to make sure that those who profit from the creative brilliance of writers, share those profits with writers, so they can be paid properly, enjoy fair working conditions and be treated with dignity and respect,” said WGGB president Sandi Toksvig, whom Americans will know from her time judging “The Great British Bake Off.” “These are the principles on which the trade union movement was founded, and they are more important today than they have ever been.”
Elsewhere, French protests will take place at 11 a.m. local time at Place Trocadero — the viewing point that overlooks the Eiffel Tower — as well as in the city of Annecy, as part of the international animation festival.
“In this spirit of solidarity, and because their demands are ours, La Guilde invites you to put down the pen and gather,” reads an invitation from France’s writers guild.
Check back here for on-the-ground coverage in London and Paris.
PARIS
Spearheaded by La Guilde des scénaristes and the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe, the event in Paris gathered under 50 people, some of whom were visiting members of the WGA. Wearing dedicated T-shirts with the banner “Solidarité avec la WGA” (solidarity with WGA) the French supporters in attendance included La Guilde des Scenaristes’ general delegate, Marie Roussin (“Lupin,” “Mixte”), and board members such as Olivier Szulzynger (“Plus Belle la Vie”) and Jean-André Yerles (“La cage dorée”).
“We’re always in a dialogue with the WGA because we share the same concerns and it’s important for us to show our American cousins that we’re standing with them,” said Roussin. She said a number of French screenwriters have been approached to replace WGA members on strike. “I think the WGA is concerned that American producers will start working with European talent during the strike so they’re also here to make sure that we’re not letting them down,” she added.
One of the WGA members on the ground in Paris is Ben Pack, who has been teaching in the writing program at USC for 13 years, and most recently worked on “Shelter,” Harlan Coben’s show, which will be coming out this August on Prime Video.
“I think it’s really important to show the studios that you can’t just go to other guilds and other countries and hire other writers to replace us. Everybody is in the same boat. We all see the same issues. We all want to be paid fairly and correctly for our work,” said Pack, who is currently teaching a class for USC students in Paris.
He said it’s also “super critical to have support and solidarity from guilds all around the world because we’re putting out shows in these different countries and we deserve to be paid equitably in a fair rate for that work.”
A primary concern shared by both U.S. and French screenwriters is A.I. which Roussin describes as a “real danger.”
“We’re not yet seeing so many French producers using A.I. but we need to be prepared for it because it’s coming. We don’t want them to start offering screenwriters €1000 [$1083] to rework six episodes written by an A.I. app. The WGA is fighting so that writers will get credited and paid for their scripts even when A.I. is involved, and we want to do the same in France,” she continued.
Pack predicts A.I. is “going to affect people here in France and other countries so we need to set the rules now and make it very clear to the streamers, especially, that these are not issues that are going away.”
Pack says the DGA wants to “make sure that in the next three years, when we actually go back to negotiate the next contract, there will still be jobs for writers that we haven’t all been replaced by bots.”
“The studio system has worked for over 70 years to produce great TV and great films. We don’t want to lose that system just because we’ve changed the way that we watch the TV shows,” Pack continued.
Roussin said the show of solidarity with the WGA is happening at a crucial time where French screenwriters have just made a “giant step forward” with a milestone agreement signed by two major producers guilds (USPA and SPI) that sets minimum fees – covering their work in fiction and animation – for the first time, starting on July 1.
“The gap between the work conditions and remunerations of American and French screenwriters has never been more flagrant. Theirs are deteriorating while ours keep progressing,” said Roussin, who pointed out the deal setting up minimum fees is a culmination of negotiations which started two years ago and followed roughly 15 years of lobbying efforts.
In the last few years, the country’s collective management society for authors and composers, called SACD, was also able to strike deals with major services, including Netflix, Amazon and Disney, to allow authors and composers to receive royalties on their content in France and in other countries with whom the SACD has agreements in place. Since the U.S. doesn’t have a pact with the SACD, it means French screenwriters didn’t get royalties on French shows which were huge hits in the U.S., for instance “Lupin” or “Call My Agent!” Still, Roussin says French screenwriters are still much better protected than their American counterparts. “The WGA’s battle is absolutely vital. Screenwriters there are getting squeezed out of profits from their shows that are being watched across 140 countries and are driving subscriptions.” Roussin said the situation for screenwriters elsewhere in Europe, for instance in Spain and Italy, is also alarming.
LONDON
More to come.