The so-called Golden Age of television has delivered hits like Succession, Yellowjackets, and The Bear. Behind them all? Gifted writers, who must navigate an industry where writing for an acclaimed series while broke, cold, and on medicaid isn’t out of the norm. Enter the 2023 writers’ strike.
After weeks of failed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television, the Writers’ Guild of America officially announced they would be going on strike over concerns about compensation, AI, working conditions, and more. The entertainment industry reportedly lost $10 billion in a single day after the writers’ strike.
But now, as pens and keyboards are replaced by witty signs and chants (they are writers, after all), it’s clear that their grievances and conditions are a microcosm of the fundamental forces shaping the future of work. While Hollywood may be shining its bright spotlight on them, ultimately, these industry-agnostic issues are destined to make their way into every boardroom.
Corporate employers have a long history of disenfranchising employees by busting, not building, unions—look no further than Starbucks for an example. Despite this, many workers are advocating for themselves whether that be by going on strike or organizing against return-to-office plans.
That’s why leaders, across industries, should watch the writers’ strike as a precautionary tale of what’s to come if workers’ grievances are not proactively addressed.
The value of workers
Reports from inside the writers’ strike negotiations paint a bleak picture: an industry riding the streaming wave to explosive financial success that is leaving writers behind. Essentially, writers (along with nearly half of all workers) do not feel that their value is fully appreciated.
The WGA’s proposal outlines the motivating factors guiding their strike—all of which shed light on key dynamics that contribute to employee retention and satisfaction, and have the potential to influence corporate America more broadly in the years to come.
As rising inflation presents new financial challenges and undercuts individuals’ quality of life, compensation has risen to the top of workers’ concerns. Writers’ demands for more compensation, and standardized residuals that are linked to the streaming success of projects, reflect a sentiment that reverberates across the labor force: more money is the number one priority for workers.
Even in traditionally high-paying industries like technology, compensation remains a hot-button issue. And economy-wide, recent pay gains have benefited executives far more than regular employees.
As CEOs complain about workers being less productive, their own paychecks are skyrocketing. According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation has grown 1,322% since 1978, while typical worker compensation has risen just 18%. Most recent figures suggest that S&P 500 CEOs averaged $18.3 million in compensation for 2021—324 times the median worker’s pay.
Current corporate compensation structures are designed to send the most gains to leaders. As a result, the pay gap between employees and executives has widened across industries—not just in entertainment. Now, employees are increasingly restless to share in the earnings. Amid complex market conditions that influence wage stagnation, employers may soon be forced to rethink their profit-sharing philosophy and transparently communicate these policies.
The imminent rise of AI
In Hollywood, writers are increasingly fearful that they’ll be edged out and replaced with AI-generated scripts and loglines. In industries like tech, we’ve already seeing AI’s impact on workers. IMB CEO Arvind Krishna recently told Bloomberg he believes 30% of back-office functions, like human resources, will be replaced by AI in the next five years.
Experts believe that AI will have human-level intelligence before 2061. And Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI,” says AI will have this dangerous capacity much sooner. From education to agriculture, customer service relations to content creation, all industries will be impacted by AI.
If Hollywood writers, commonly thought to be one of the irreplaceable professions, can be replaced by AI, then no thought work is safe. AI is bound to catalyze a significant and long-lasting shift in how workplaces function. Automation will alter job descriptions (or replace them altogether), require new hires to bring a different set of skills to the table, and likely change the way that creatives ideate.
The perils of payment after service
The plight of the average writer working in a so-called “mini room” is eerily similar to that of suppliers attempting to forge a mutually beneficial relationship with a major corporation. In both cases, unfortunately, the odds aren’t in the workers’ favor.
Just like vendors have to deliver specific goods or services before they know if they’ve fulfilled a contract’s incredibly specific terms, mini rooms see multiple writers hired to write an entire season’s worth of material before a production has been greenlit. In addition to getting paid a fraction of what they would be if they were working during production, if a pilot is picked up by a network or a streaming service, writers aren’t guaranteed to be hired to continue writing for it. Similarly, vendors can be locked in exclusive contracts and ultimately be at the mercy of a larger company’s strategic decision to pay suppliers late.
The people who bring popular, lucrative shows to life want contracts that fairly reflect the value of their services, and compensate them in a timely, standardized manner. It’s only a matter of time until the suppliers who prop up the world’s largest corporations lose patience with being the last priority when it comes to getting paid.
What leaders should learn
Today, leaders cannot afford to lead defensively. In and out of Hollywood, employers need to prepare for how the forces driving the writers’ strike, such as compensation and AI, will shape their respective industries—unless they want their own growth impacted.
Executives can put their organizations on a path to sustained success by carving out clear and candid communication channels with their workforce to proactively alleviate employees’ valid concerns and assure them they’re not just valued—they’re irreplaceable.
Rimma Boshernitsan is founder and CEO of Dialogue, an interdisciplinary strategic advisory firm that provides thought partnership for leaders of future-facing organizations.
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