WGA Strike : Lying With Numbers
Atrios catches some anti-WGA strike bias on CNBC, a network that prides itself in catering to “business executives and financial professionals that have significant purchasing power”. The chyron reads :
WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR?4,434 Hollywood guild writers worked full-time last year.
Average salary: $204,000
Many earned $1 million or more
Well, to answer CNBC’s question, they aren’t fighting for “significant purchasing power”. They’re fighting for the financial security that would allow their members to remain in the middle class.
Middle class? Two hundred grand sounds like a good deal, but remember that’s the average salary. This number was chosen specifically because CNBC and the studios on whose behalf they’re arguing want you to believe that most writers are spoiled brats whining about their six-figure incomes. But in a case like this in which a deliberately-vague “many” WGA members earn over $1 million, the “average” income is misleading. A much more important measurement of writers income is the median.
For a good illustration of the difference between “average” and “median” incomes, let me refer you to this graph from the classic book “How to Lie With Statistics” (used without permission. go buy it now!) :
If you add up all of the salaries and divide it by the number of employees, you come up with an “average” that is a poor indicator of an ordinary worker’s income. After all, Mr. Moneybags at the top brings home more than twenty times what the dozen peons at the bottom of the graph make. And this “average” income is only earned by one person, who earns more than 20 of the 24 employees on the chart. While the “average” in this case is mathematically correct, it doesn’t represent the typical income. Or to use an oft-cited example, if Bill Gates walked into a homeless shelter, the “average” income would skyrocket, but it wouldn’t change the fact that everyone else is poor.
Now let’s go back to the WGA strike. Thanks to our friends at CNBC, we know that the “average” WGA member makes $200K, but what’s the median income? According to an LA Times op-ed written by a WGA board member :
“The median income of screen and television writers from their guild-covered employment is $5,000 a year, in part because almost half our members don’t work in any given year.”
Five. Thousand. Dollars. Now keep that figure in mind when you see these CEOs gush about how much money they’ll be making :
CNBC wants to know “What are they fighting for?”. Well, considering that writers aren’t even being paid for this “golden era”, the WGA is fighting to keep their five thousand dollars from being taken away in the future. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
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Well, even if you forget the mean average vs median, they’re fudging the numbers by only counting writers who were working full time last year. Not writers working part time. Not writers technically unemployed working on six different projects they hoped to sell. Not writers who’s shows got cancelled halfway through the season.
It’s like when Longshore workers go on strike and they only talk about a guy with his A Card and 30 years of seniority, not the part-time casual workers who have to travel all over the coast to try to get their hours.
Comment by David Grenier — November 16, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
I can’t wait until writers of traditional web content can have a guild, too. I was listening about the strike on NPR and didn’t realize that the strike was largely about emerging forms of content, and how to protect writers from being forced to produce content for free for internet consumption. I suddenly realized, hey, I work for a very successful website, where I’ve been producing lots of copy for free for almost a year, in my off-hours, in the hopes of transitioning onto the writing team when the time is right. I wish there was an online content writer’s guild, so they’d have to pay all writers something, rather than finagling us for free content by dangling carrots at us. Too bad my industry didn’t grow up in a more enlightened era.
Comment by dAnimal — November 16, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
Well, gas, groceries, and rent went up. What really pisses me off is cigarettes and whiskey went up too. Damn little pleasures these days.
Comment by Mike Meyer — November 16, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
dAnimal,
So you think the Hollywood of yore (or the auto industry, or steel industry, or mining industry) was “more enlightened”? No. Everything workers have they had to fight for, tooth and nail. People lost their livlihoods, were jailed, were beaten and even killed for the rights that we’ve largely whittled away.
If you want a union, you need to organize one. I’m sure the WGA will help, but if you wait for them to ride in on a white horse or you wait for your bosses to voluntarily give up money and power, it’ll never happen.
Right now I doubt the WGA is going to have much time to do new organizing (and even when they do they seem to be strategically incresing their density in an industry where they’re strong – i.e. trying to organize workers on reality shows, so they may not have the resources to go into a new industry) but you should give them a call and see what they say. They might be able to at least get you started.
Comment by David Grenier — November 17, 2007 @ 8:16 am
OT:1-202-225-0100 DEMAND IMPEACHMENT.
Comment by Mike Meyer — November 17, 2007 @ 9:15 am
Welcome to the Gilded Age, Part II
Comment by Doobie — November 18, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
It sounds to me that if the WGA workers want “just compensation”, they shouldn’t be looking at the companies, but at themselves. Companies care more about the bottom line, and it looks to me they’re paying out a LOT per person, regardless of how it’s distributed. Now, if you want to profit share throughout all writers, with lesser talents mooching off of the work of the superstars, that’s your socialist cup of tea.
Now, for most in the working world, they give companies the fruits of our labor in exchange for a salary. No residuals for generating an SEC company report, read by tens of thousands! And if you’re not making enough? Get a second job. I hear McDonald’s is hiring.
Comment by Alex — December 18, 2007 @ 5:46 pm
I find it some what interesting that dAnimal would sight
union developement in auto,steel and mining industries since that union activity for a large part has effectivly eliminated the steel industy in this country, crippled the traditional auto industry, and has mining on is way out here!
Comment by john — January 1, 2008 @ 9:34 am
I’ll tell you what… If they are complaining about their pay then I will be glad to trade one months pay with one of the average wga members salaries of 204,000 dollars. That equals about 17000 in one month. Heck, I am a mechanic and they need me to get them back and forth to work (or the picket lines… sorry), and I only make about 2.5 times in one year then they make in a month. Quit your whining wga.
Comment by Eric — January 7, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
Eric:
Please try actually reading the article THAT YOU POSTED TO so you can disabuse yourself of your incorrect assumptions about the WGA’s wages.
Comment by Kevin — January 9, 2008 @ 9:42 am
“First, when they say “the average writer”, they are actually referring to the average employed writer. However, in 2003, the WGA had roughly 7500 members, of whom 4,298 had some were employed at some point in the year. That means that only about 57% of WGA members had any income from film, TV, or other WGA-covered sources during the year.
So, if you have a 57% chance of being employed in a given year… and you can expect to earn $93,482 if employed… you have an expected income for that year of $53,284.74. Your agent gets 10% of that, and your lawyer gets 5%, so that’s $45,292.03 left over for you. At least, until you have to pay taxes…”http://www.theblankpage.us/archives/2005/07/the_economics_o_1.html
Comment by fred tam — January 26, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
The internet makes so many things freely available, I’m not sure why anyone in the media expects to make much money down the road. Newspapers, magazines and books have largely become irrelevant. Next is tv and movies. The monopoly and extremely limited distribution is over. No one on the web should expect that becoming part of guild will make the more money. Those in hollywood should be expecting to be continually making less and less money.
Comment by JJ — February 4, 2008 @ 10:58 am