Writer's Strike
Barbara Ehrenreich has a clever piece on her blog about the writers' strike out in Hollywood. She admits that writers don't gain public sympathy in quite the same way as coalminers:
a screenwriters’ strike is not as emotionally compelling as a strike by janitors or farm-workers. Screenwriters are often well-paid – when they are paid. All it takes is for a show to get cancelled or reconceptualized, and they’re back on the streets again, hustling for work. I know a couple of them – smart, funny women who clamber nimbly from one short-lived job to another, struggling to keep up their health insurance and self-respect.
But my selfish hope here is that the screenwriters’ action will call attention to the plight of writers in general. Since I started in the freelancing business about 30 years ago, the per-word payment for print articles has remained exactly the same in actual, non-inflation-adjusted, dollars. Three dollars a word was pretty much top of the line, and it hasn’t gone up by a penny. More commonly in the old days, I made a dollar a word, requiring me to write three or four 1000-word pieces a month to supply the children with their bagels and pizza. One for Mademoiselle on “The Heartbreak Diet.” One for Ms. on “The Bright Side of the Man Shortage.” One for Mother Jones on pharmaceutical sales scams, and probably a book review thrown in.
There was a perk, of course – the occasional free lunch on an editor’s expense account. These would occur in up-market restaurants where the price of lunch for two would easily exceed my family’s weekly food budget, but I realized it would be gauche to bring a plastic baggie for the rolls. My job was to pitch story ideas over the field greens and tuna tartare, all the while marveling at the wealth that my writing helped generate, which, except for the food on my plate, went largely to someone other than me.
For print writers, things have gone steadily downhill. The number of traditional outlets—magazines and newspapers – is shrinking. Ms., for example, publishes only quarterly now, Mother Jones every two months, and Mademoiselle has long since said au revoir. You can blog on the Web of course, but that pays exactly zero. As for benefits: once the National Writers’ Union offered health insurance, but Aetna dropped it and then Unicare found writers too sickly to cover. (You can still find health insurance, however, at http://www.freelancersunion.org/)
So, you may be thinking, who needs writers anyway? The truth is, no one needs any particular writer, just as no one needs any particular auto worker, stage-hand, or janitor. But take us all away and TV’s funny men will be struck mute, soap opera actors will be reduced to sighing and grunting, CNN anchors will have to fill the whole hour with chit chat about the weather, all greeting cards will be blank. Newspapers will consist of advertisements and movie listings; the Web will collapse into YouTube. A sad, bewildered, silence will come over the land.
Besides, anyone who’s willing to stand up to greedy bosses deserves our support. A victory for one group, from Ford workers to stage-hands, raises the prospects for everyone else. Who knows? If the screenwriters win, maybe some tiny measure of respect will eventually trickle down even to bloggers. So in further solidarity with striking writers, I’m going to shut up right now.
But my selfish hope here is that the screenwriters’ action will call attention to the plight of writers in general. Since I started in the freelancing business about 30 years ago, the per-word payment for print articles has remained exactly the same in actual, non-inflation-adjusted, dollars. Three dollars a word was pretty much top of the line, and it hasn’t gone up by a penny. More commonly in the old days, I made a dollar a word, requiring me to write three or four 1000-word pieces a month to supply the children with their bagels and pizza. One for Mademoiselle on “The Heartbreak Diet.” One for Ms. on “The Bright Side of the Man Shortage.” One for Mother Jones on pharmaceutical sales scams, and probably a book review thrown in.
There was a perk, of course – the occasional free lunch on an editor’s expense account. These would occur in up-market restaurants where the price of lunch for two would easily exceed my family’s weekly food budget, but I realized it would be gauche to bring a plastic baggie for the rolls. My job was to pitch story ideas over the field greens and tuna tartare, all the while marveling at the wealth that my writing helped generate, which, except for the food on my plate, went largely to someone other than me.
For print writers, things have gone steadily downhill. The number of traditional outlets—magazines and newspapers – is shrinking. Ms., for example, publishes only quarterly now, Mother Jones every two months, and Mademoiselle has long since said au revoir. You can blog on the Web of course, but that pays exactly zero. As for benefits: once the National Writers’ Union offered health insurance, but Aetna dropped it and then Unicare found writers too sickly to cover. (You can still find health insurance, however, at http://www.freelancersunion.org/)
So, you may be thinking, who needs writers anyway? The truth is, no one needs any particular writer, just as no one needs any particular auto worker, stage-hand, or janitor. But take us all away and TV’s funny men will be struck mute, soap opera actors will be reduced to sighing and grunting, CNN anchors will have to fill the whole hour with chit chat about the weather, all greeting cards will be blank. Newspapers will consist of advertisements and movie listings; the Web will collapse into YouTube. A sad, bewildered, silence will come over the land.
Besides, anyone who’s willing to stand up to greedy bosses deserves our support. A victory for one group, from Ford workers to stage-hands, raises the prospects for everyone else. Who knows? If the screenwriters win, maybe some tiny measure of respect will eventually trickle down even to bloggers. So in further solidarity with striking writers, I’m going to shut up right now.
While Barbara E. is essentially correct that blogging is a labor of love, my own experience proves it can pay slighly higher than "exactly zero." Over the last few months, I've had enough money donated by friends of this blog (using the handy paypal button to the right) to cover at least 15 days of high-speed internet charges!! :)
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