2023-08-13 21:37:17
Hollywood scriptwriters have been on strike for more than 100 days. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) union authorized this strike on May 2. Their claim: improve their working conditions. The actors joined their struggle last July. A union that had not taken place for more than 60 years, and that has already claimed cancellations of shootings, absences in promotional campaigns and losses estimated at 30 million euros per day.
The actors join the writers and go on a strike that will completely paralyze Hollywood
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Their demands go through demanding that contracts be reviewed after the paradigm shift that has involved the arrival of platforms and new technologies, such as the controversial Artificial Intelligence.
This is the protest and struggle that they are facing in the United States, but what is the situation of scriptwriters in Spain? Are your claims extendable to our country? Could a strike of this caliber be called here? Clara Roquet, creator of scripts for feature films such as the days to come, 10.000 km y Freedom –which he also directed and earned him the Goya for Best New Director–, he is forceful before this newspaper: “If they are bad in the US, imagine in Spain”. The filmmaker assures that they are “a very precarious sector”.
Among other aspects, because “many times the money is put directly into production and not into development, so we have to work without knowing if we are going to get paid, in independent films for example. This is partly because some development aid provided by the ICAA disappeared”.
union strength
The main change that is affecting both sides of the pond equally is the irruption of the services of streaming. “Since his arrival, the market has become more globalized. Everything that applies there will end up here. We make series that are seen all over the world. This should make us earn more money because it is seen everywhere… But no, we earn the same for a series that is seen in Spain than another that goes to hundreds of countries”, Carlos de Pando, a member of the Board of directors of ALMA, the Spanish scriptwriters union, which is made up of more than 800 film and television scriptwriters. In its counterpart organization in the US, the number of affiliates exceeds 11,000.
The spokesman, scriptwriter of the series ¡García! y no footprints, explains that among the contexts that “cannot be compared” between both industries is “the way of working”, since there “you need to be a union, and not here”. “In Spain we have a strong, well-organized union, we are very committed and in solidarity with the American strike, but the tools we have are a little more flimsy. The idea of going on strike always flies by, especially when there is one there”, he comments.
Something that already happened in 2007, in which the television writers stopped for more than three months. The strike was effective, but many of its victories were undermined by the paradigm shift that the platforms implied.
In Spain we are very committed to the American strike, but the tools we have are a little weaker
Carlos de Pando — Screenwriter and spokesperson for ALMA
One of its main consequences is that films are no longer commercially exploited in the same way. Hence, it claims to review what is known as residuals, the money that screenwriters receive for rights after the exploitation in theaters of a work. Until now it could be calculated in a simple way, going to the sales figures for DVDs and television shows, but with the services of streaming everything has been changed.
“The demands that they are making in the United States are completely extensible to Spain,” Roquet supports, “now the platforms are the ones that have the power, much shorter series are made and the remuneration is much lower in comparison.” The scriptwriter and director regrets that there is still “not enough union capacity or unionized people” here, because of how this makes them lose strength: “There is a lot of work left.”
Import claims, add your own
Víctor Alonso, who has written series for Avalon and The Mediapro Studio, and is currently developing his first feature film with the producers Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida, points out that one of the main differences between the situation of Hollywood professionals and the Spanish ones is that there “They are a union with a lot of history. It is a trade that comes from the beginning of the 20th century. They also fight for their right to health and retirement. The union is the one that gives you access to these types of basic questions that have to do with survival. Some of the primary struggles that are being fought are fortunately not being fought out in Europe.”
Hence, in turn, he valued, in statements to this newspaper, having the ability to mark the Spanish agenda itself with “labor demands that are not always the same as the North American ones.” Within the model that currently prevails in Spain, he emphasizes that what worries him the most is “the socioeconomic division of the whole world that is part of the cultural industries. The sector believes in meritocracy and this contributes to promoting inequality. With a model in which you do not collect a salary, but rather for specific projects and long waiting times, economic stability is a chimera”.
This implies that the socioeconomic profile of professionals dedicated to audiovisuals is of “middle or upper social class, at least”. In the same way, he points out the internship system, which he also values as “a form of positive discrimination for the rich”, because they are “unpaid or extremely precarious, and at the same time necessary to achieve the level of contacts to survive in the industry”.
“Only those people who can afford to spend months of their lives without getting paid can afford to dedicate themselves to the audiovisual sector. As scriptwriters we have to worry about who tells the stories and what we tell ”, she warns, pointing out another and flagrant problem along the same lines:“ The privatization of education ”.
From ALMA, Carlos de Pando shares that one of the main struggles is his collective agreement, which has been “frozen since 2017, without establishing a minimum wage for work.” “We have been fighting this for many years. It is a good reason to stand up ”, he declares about a framework that in turn does not cover all professionals who work as freelancers by projects, which the impact of the platforms has left more unprotected.
One of the US protests on which in Spain they had begun to give “first attempts” is to end the mini-rooms that impose smaller and smaller teams in series that have not yet been approved. A practice that causes its writers to assume writing functions that are functionally and financially detached from the production, in addition to preventing the access of new talent to the script rooms, culminating in a smaller number of professionals writing more projects. “They are hired for less time, with daily contracts, so they can fire you from one day to the next and they keep the rights to all your work. They provide negligible security for the worker”, criticizes the member of the ALMA Board of Directors.
AI, a widespread concern
“It worries us a lot,” laments De Pando about how his trade can be torpedoed by the irruption of AI. “We are not at the point where he can replace the work of a screenwriter, but we are close to it. You tell him to write a script, and he does. Right now something flat, a skeleton and little else, but the AI learns with everything it does and the content that is given to it”, he comments, pointing out one of the conflicts that this generates: “No one has asked cartoonists, writers or musicians for permission for them to use their work. It is being done for free and fraudulently.”
“It is potentially dangerous. If you can use an AI and not have to pay a worker, it will make you end up hiring a writer for less time, to rewrite something that has generated an AI, ”she says. Víctor Alonso argues that “it is not so much a creative debate, but about working conditions, because of how it can be used as a pretext to make them worse. And we would have to see what happens with copyright.”
The debate about AI is not so much creative, but about working conditions. Because of how it can be used as a pretext to make them worse. And we would have to see what happens with copyright
Víctor Alonso — Writer and director
When analyzing what happened in the US, he maintains that when the negotiations began, the union started without giving it too much importance. Seeing the reaction of the studios, which “shut down to taking AI out of the equation, they got worried. They set up a committee to study its impact and it has become a key element.” Roquet, for his part, believes that “it will not affect auteur cinema as much, but it will affect other types of audiovisual products.” “What it does is basically disempowers the worker, the human experience and creativity. And that must always be protected ”, he concludes.
an uncertain horizon
“In Hollywood they have paralyzed the industry more than once, they have shown that they can do it and that they are in control,” reflects the filmmaker on the impact that the result of the negotiations in the US could have on the rest of the world. Carlos de Pando shares that from ALMA they support her cause: “If they call us to do a job that an American screenwriter would have said no to, we won’t write it either.”
And he attributes the changes produced in recent years to the detriment of workers to “brutal capitalism”: “In the studies with which we negotiated before, there were people who understood the industry, who were dedicated to this work. Now we have executives who could be doing this like they could be selling screws. This is how a logic of expense and benefit starts to work as if it were another type of company, without taking into account the differences”.
De Pando is optimistic in thinking that if the WGA were to win in the US, it would cause, not solve the problems of the entire planet but would provide “a framework on which to negotiate.” Even so, he is aware that if it lasts much longer in the future, “it will begin to take its toll.” “There are no signs of arrangements for now. The CEO of one of the platforms said that they did not plan to sit down until October so that the writers would have problems paying their houses and, there, drowned by money, crush them. It doesn’t look like it’s going to end quickly, ”he says, worried.
Víctor Alonso adds: “In addition to the claim for their struggles, we share the feeling of uncertainty at a time of transformation. The sector is changing profoundly. Technological capital has had such a direct influence on the audiovisual sector for the first time, on the type of projects, the type of incentives to generate fiction, the transformation of ways of working, on the characteristics of filming… And this has consequences in working conditions”.
And take the opportunity to remember that “the struggles of the workers are shared beyond the cinema”: “In the claim of working conditions, we are not so far from the US in Spain, nor from other areas. The audiovisual sector is seen as a privileged sector, but we are workers like those of any other sector”.
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