As negotiations between the WGA and the studios and streamers gather steam, the reverberations are being felt well beyond the confines of Sherman Oaks where the sides are sitting down to wrangle over complicated issues at stake. Thousands of miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic, questions are already being asked about what impact a WGA strike may have in the U.K. – and whether British writers, who harbor many of the same concerns as their American counterparts, could ever stage a strike.
“The problems that U.K. writers and U.S. writers face are basically the same,” says Robert Taylor, a lawyer and screenwriter who also acts as a legal advisor to the Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB). “The things in the U.S. strike about not getting paid enough by the streaming services, the things about mini [writers’] rooms and the writers being expected to contribute for small amounts of money and then being dropped, not being taken forward into the series, it’s exactly the same in the U.K.”
One U.K. writer, who has worked with major U.S. studios and streamers as well as British broadcasters, and who spoke to PvNew on condition of anonymity, agreed that a lack of residuals, growing inequality between top talent and jobbing writers and the threat of shows being canceled, especially late into the production process, were as much a concern on his side of the pond as they are here. “I think [cancelation] is one of the biggest things at the moment for working writers,” he said. “The idea that you can make something and it just disappears — people are incandescent with rage about it.”
WGGB chair Lisa Holdsworth, who has written for shows including “Call The Midwife” and “A Discovery of Witches,” cautions there are also significant differences between the two writing cultures. For example writers rooms are less common in the U.K. (although that is increasingly changing, she adds, with “Doctor Who” among the shows that has introduced one). “I don’t think it’s a way that British writers like to work,” she says. “We are very much of an authored tradition.”
Holdsworth also points out that because of the WGGB’s agreements with ITV and the BBC – Britain’s largest public service broadcasters – writers still have “quite good” minimum terms. And unlike their U.S. colleagues, they often get to hold onto the copyright of their work. But she acknowledges the picture is less rosy where streamers are concerned, particularly when it comes to negotiating residuals and rights. “We need a new model because of the way streamers work and the way increasingly people are watching television,” says Holdsworth.
By way of comparison, she says one particular episode of classic British detective show “Midsomer Murders” that she penned is often repeated on TV, yielding a significant enough residual check to enable her to redecorate her kitchen. “Those days are disappearing now, so we need to make sure that writing is a sustainable career,” she says. “Because also the knock-on effect of people only being able to live from script to script [is] a devastating effect on diversity and inclusion.”
So is the WGGB considering the possibility of a similar strike action to its U.S. counterpart? In short, the answer is no. Not because there’s a lack of desire but because, due to U.K. and European law, the might of the unions was greatly curtailed during the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, the “closed shop” paradigm – when union membership is required in order to be able to work in a certain field, as is the case for screenwriters in the U.S. – was outlawed in the U.K. in 1990.
Taylor says those restrictions “make strike action by the WGGB difficult if not impossible.” Effectively, even if the WGGB did take strike action it simply wouldn’t be very effective because writers who are not Guild members would still be free to work.
But with the increasing globalization of the screen industry — far greater than was the case during the last U.S. writers strike in late 2007 and early 2008 — the WGA may well find itself facing a similar problem. Many of the studios and streamers it is currently negotiating with have at least a presence if not a fully operational production outfit in the U.K. and there is, in theory, little to stop them simply moving a production over to its U.K. outpost and switching to British writers on British contracts. While some U.K. writers are also WGA members, those who are not would, in theory, be able to cross the picket line.
“These things are getting even more cross-border and with these huge streaming services and [shows where] it’s not clear where they operate from,” Taylor acknowledges. “So the whole thing becomes quite murky.”
Holdsworth is firm that U.K. writers should not be viewed as a “cheap alternative to American writers, because it’s simply not the case,” she says. “We have a very high skill level in this country.” But she acknowledges that in the event WGA negotiations break down and a strike is called, there would likely have to be a discussion between the U.S. and U.K. Guilds to ensure that non-WGA members were able to continue working in Britain. “Because obviously we have a responsibility to make sure not only writers are protected in terms of work in the immediate future but also in the distant future,” she says.
Under the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, which in addition to the WGA and WGGB counts guilds from around the world among its membership, there is an affiliation agreement to back strike action by other members’ guilds. “Collectively, the IAWG member guilds represent approximately 55,000 professional film and television writers from Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa, and Spain who stand in solidarity with the WGA and will not perform struck work by acting as scab labor,” IAWG chair Thomas McLaughlin tells PvNew.
As for those writers who are not U.K. Guild members, Taylor suggests the prospect of antagonizing the WGA may be enough to dissuade them. “[Crossing the picket line] could have repercussions for the rest of your career,” he counsels.
Ultimately, Holdsworth’s hope is that the negotiations in Sherman Oaks reach a constructive conclusion. But, if they don’t, she anticipates any strike action would be relatively short-lived. “Because what the 2008 strike proved is you can’t make television without writers,” she says. “It starts with us. It starts with our ideas.”
VIP+ Webinar Replay: Dissecting the WGA-AMPTP Negotiations
