November 20, 2007

Labor history, Hollywood edition

A brief history of labor relations between the producers and the writers.

Sample:

From then on [1955, when fragmented groups of writers consolidated into Writers Guild West and Writers Guild East], the WGA's history is largely a series of strikes or threatened strikes, each of which resulted in the establishment of some new right or principle. They won the right to residuals when TV shows were rerun; they won the right to screen credits, setting up a system of rules and arbitrations that stopped the guy who ran the studio from slapping his nephew's name on your script. The strike of 1960--which lasted 151 days, making it the longest strike in Hollywood until the Writers Guild later bettered its own record--was the one that secured a pension plan as well as residual payments when a movie was run on television.

Gosh, what a concept. Pension plans. Residuals when your work is televised. Damn Commies! (Literally; that was one of the canards thrown at the writers when they first began to organize.)

This looks to be an interesting (and brand-new) book about screenwriting and Hollywood: "What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting," written by Marc Norman (co-writer and producer of "Shakespeare in Love"). As one of the editorial reviews says, it's astonishing no one has written it before.

Posted by Linkmeister at November 20, 2007 10:39 AM | TrackBack
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