This was written in anticipation of an impending writers strike back in May of 2001.
http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/05/02/wga_strike/?CP=YAH&DN=110
What do you guys think of it? (Here's an excerpt.)
http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/05/02/wga_strike/?CP=YAH&DN=110
What do you guys think of it? (Here's an excerpt.)
I, scab
A nonunion Hollywood screenwriter answers all your questions about the looming writers strike.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Sevi
May 2, 2001
Writers strikes aren't all bad. I'm a nonunion screenwriter who's written several low-budget scripts but never landed a huge studio deal. Yesterday my agent actually took time to chat with me. Then he told me to call back if I had more questions. Has he ever done that before? No. Is that an indication of how slow things are in Hollywood? You bet your ass.
Let's talk about you. How will the strike affect you?
Because I don't have a union card I can scab freely. (Attention all desperate producers: My e-mail address is at the end of this piece.) Although I emotionally support the Writers Guild of America and the membership, I feel no obligation to starve in solidarity with them. I get residuals on only one of my 14 films and I really think it's only because someone screwed up and put my name in the wrong computer database.
I tried to join the WGA, I really did. After I sold my first script in 1991 I called the union and said, "Here I am. Take my money." (Dues are $2,500 one time, plus 1 percent of your annual income for life! Unsurprisingly, the WGA has a huge strike fund to spread around.) At the time, WGA told me to go away because I had apparently done work for a "nonunion" shop, a low-rent B-movie production studio.
I hung my head in shame. And then I went out and wrote credited screenplays for another 13 films -- jobs that I could not have taken had I been a WGA member. There was a lot of work around that wouldn't have paid the union minimum. Then again, my last film, "Arachnid," was actually done by a Barcelona production company. Those Spanish boys could care less about the WGA. But they paid me more than guild minimum anyway.
I will join the union once I sell a script to a major studio. I will have to because by agreement the American studios can't hire nonunion writers. Until then, I'm hoping to make a killing by scabbing my limited talent to whatever producer will have me. Then I'll put all my ill-gotten gains into the NASDAQ just as it makes a resurgence, and live comfortably for the rest of my life.
Last edited: