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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
David Sirota: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Lever Time, the flagship podcast from The Lever, an independent investigative news outlet. I'm your host, David Sirota. On today's show, we're going to be talking about the big Hollywood labor strikes. The Writers Guild of America, the union for the writers, just entered its 12th week.
12th week of striking as TV and film writers are demanding better pay and work protections from the huge studios, the networks, and the streaming platforms. Then this past week, SAG AFTRA, that's the union that represents the film and TV Actors, the famous people that you know, they've also gone on strike with both unions on strike together now for the first time since 1960, though, this isn't just a story about Hollywood.
It's about the broader American labor movement. And today I'm [00:01:00] going to be speaking with a WGA member. Who's been one of the writers from the hit show, the. Bear. We discuss everything you need to know about what the unions are demanding, what's at stake if those demands aren't met, and how these strikes have the potential to energize labor struggles across the entire country.
For our paid subscribers, we're also dropping exclusive bonus episodes into our Lever Premium podcast feed this past Monday. We published producer Jared's interview with Will Wiseman and Alba Forns, co founders of the green energy investment app called Climatize. It's a mobile app that allows users to invest in solar and green energy projects, many of which are focused on underserved communities.
If you want to access our premium content, head over to levernews. com and click the subscribe button in the top right to become a supporting subscriber. That'll give you access to the Lever premium podcast feed, exclusive live events, and all of the in depth reporting and investigative journalism that we do [00:02:00] here at The Lever.
The only way independent media grows and thrives is because of passionate supporters and by word of mouth. So we need all the help we can get. To combat the inane bullshit that is corporate media. So go subscribe. It directly funds the work that we do.
Today, I am here with Lever Times producer, Frank. What's up, Frank?
Producer Frank: Not much, David. Feeling pretty energized myself today. As you know, I formerly was an actor and a card carrying, uh, SAG AFTRA union member. I'm no longer an active member, but I still have a lot of friends who are, and... Uh, the energy in, in my friend group and some of my group chaps has been very, very palpable.
Very pro Labor, very anti Bob Iger. So it's been a, it's been an interesting, uh, week this past week.
David Sirota: Frank, I mentioned at the top of the show that this is the first time since 1960 that both unions have gone on strike. Do you happen to know who led the last strike in 1960
Producer Frank: I actually do.
David Sirota: of your favorite political people, your political hero, right, Frank?
Producer Frank: one [00:03:00] of all of ours. Yes, Ronald Reagan was the president of SAG AFTRA during that strike.
David Sirota: right, and here's how the Washington Post put it. I love their story about it. . The year was 1959. And talks between the Screen Actors Guild and movie studios had stalled.
The actors sought residual payments from TV channels that re ran films that they had worked on in what would have been a drastic shake up. Producers, seeking higher profits from new media, refused to negotiate. So SAG called in a ringer. who had retired previously from union leadership. The one, the only Ronald Reagan.
Now, of course I was joking. Ronald Reagan is not Frank's political hero, nor my political hero. Uh, but it is interesting to remember that Ronald Reagan was a union leader before he became the. One of the most, if not the most, anti union president, uh, in modern American history. He [00:04:00] was a union leader who led this kind of fight, and it's kind of a reminder that what's old is new again, that history oftentimes doesn't change, it rhymes, uh, it repeats, uh, and By the way, they were, they were arguing over much the same things that they're arguing over now.
I mean, basic pay, uh, residuals and the like. Although now, now a lot of this has to do, uh, also with artificial intelligence. And we're gonna get into a discussion about that later on in the show. I, I think it is... energizing. I'm just getting back from, uh, from a vacation. So I'm still just catching up on everything.
We did a vacation out to, uh, to Southern Utah, uh, which if you want to get off the grid, I mean, like physically off the grid, uh, recommendation for everybody that that is where to go. If you, if you can take a road trip out to Southern Utah, it is unbelievably spectacular. And I was mentioning to Frank that there was a moment in which I thought I saw a UFO for real.
Producer Frank: Yeah, I need to [00:05:00] hear about this story because you're, I mean, you're a journalist, you know, so I take it that I'm gonna get nothing but facts here, so I wanna, I wanna hear about your UFO =sighting
David Sirota: So Bryce Canyon is where we were near, and Bryce Canyon is one of the dark, dark sites in America. A dark site is where there's no residual light from other places. And I was out doing astrophotography, which is one of my hobbies. Uh, and I posted those, some of those pictures to my, my Instagram. Folks can go see them and Emily was there and I have a little laser pointer to like point out different things in the sky.
It's actually amazing. It can turn the sky into a kind of a planetarium and I'm taking pictures and Emily goes, Hey, is your laser pointer still on? And I'm like looking at the camera. I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, are you sure? Did you leave your laser pointer? I'm like, no, what are you, what are you talking about?
I stopped taking pictures and I look up and there is This line of stars, like a perfectly straight line of stars that is moving through the [00:06:00] sky in a perfectly straight line. And I'm like, holy shit, holy shit. It's a UFO, UFO, UFO. Like I just, I just started like, I just, that's, that's, that's literally what I was like.
I just like started panicking. I'm like, UFO, it's a UFO, it's a UFO. And I, I, I like try to turn the camera around. It's moving too fast. I grabbed the iPhone. I take like a, iPhone photo. It's all grainy. It's like, no wonder people can't get pictures of UFOs on, on, they, they move too fast.
All it looks like on my iPhone is a line. I'm like, oh my God, we just saw a ufo, and it like, disappears, gone. So once we get back on the grid, I go a couple minutes later, we were driving through a town. There happened to be connectivity.
I, I plug into the,, line of stars, UFO, and my, my, my fantasies were crushed. Uh, apparently, uh, this was a Starlink satellite launch. Uh, Elon Musk's Starlink satellites that when they launch... And by the way, these are typically seen, apparently, according to the article I read, typically seen on the coast, not necessarily in the [00:07:00] middle of the country, but I guess we saw one, because what they described is exactly what we saw, which is a line of stars that moves as a line through the sky.
Clearly not a naturally occurring thing, it's something artificial. Uh, I was... I was fantasizing that maybe it was non human intelligence, but I, it was Elon Musk intelligence. Uh, you know, these, the satellites that provide internet. So that's, that's my UFO, not a UFO story.
Producer Frank: damn. Another reason to dislike Elon Musk. Wow.
David Sirota: Right, some might argue he, he slightly, uh, ruined my dark sky experience. He lit up, he lit up the sky momentarily with his... Internet satellites. But nonetheless, it was pretty cool. I mean, this, if you have not seen the sky out there, and I know Frank that you've gone, uh, you've spent some time in Southern Utah, uh, if folks have not spent time under that sky, I mean, I would really, really recommend it.
I, I, I, I really think that if you think about it in the scope of human history, that when you look at the dark [00:08:00] sky and realize that most of human history, humans were looking up at that you understand how. religion was created. You look up at that and it's a sort of logical conclusion that there is a higher power.
At least that's, that's my view sometimes when I look up at the dark sky.
Producer Frank: Sure.
David Sirota: Before we get to our interview today, uh, let's first talk quickly, uh, about, uh, one of the stories that the Lever published in my absence while I was gazing up at the dark sky. Uh, it was a story published a few days ago. It's about the intensifying wildfires.
And it's specifically focused on California and the insurance industry. Some context. It's a really important story because this, situation is going to come, in my view, to every state, the insurance shenanigans around climate.
The context of this story is that in California, climate change has made wildfires about five times bigger than they were in 1971, according to experts. So in the last two [00:09:00] months, Three major home insurers in California, Farmers Insurance Group, State Farm, and Allstate, they have announced plans to limit new business in the state due to the rising costs of coverage, insurance coverage, caused by these climate fueled wildfires.
Now here's the catch. Or at least the hypocrisy. These insurers also hold nearly 40 billion in fossil fuel investments. You heard that right. These companies claim it's too expensive to insure homes in California due to growing wildfires, while these same companies are simultaneously investing their policyholders premiums in the fossil fuel industry that is fueling the growth.
of those wildfires. Now, adding insult to injury, these insurance companies are also using the new climate hellscape [00:10:00] to argue for more deregulation. They're asking California regulators to relax the state's anti price gouging laws so that they can jack up premiums on consumers that they are still doing business with.
Critics argue that insurance companies Are exploiting the crisis and actually profiting twice over by shifting the rising costs of climate disasters to consumers while still investing billions in the fossil fuel industry and also while still ensuring fossil fuel projects. That's the other part of this.
They're reducing and limiting insurance coverage for homeowners while continuing to provide insurance on fossil fuel projects and while continuing, as I said before, to invest policyholders premiums in fossil fuel companies. There are multiple strands here. [00:11:00] But the bottom line is, is that you have the insurance industry withdrawing coverage from rank and file people while continuing to invest its money in the fossil fuel industry, while continuing to insure fossil fuel projects. that are making the climate crisis worse, and now they are also trying to use this mess to kill the regulations that are designed to protect consumers from being ripped off by higher and higher premiums. So, What this really is is the insurance company is trying to game the crisis for itself and California is where this is playing out right now, but it's not the only place it's going to play out.
It's already also playing out. In Florida, in a different kind of way, my guess is this is going to be the game that they are going to play in every single state as the crisis gets worse. And the question everyone [00:12:00] should be asking is, if the insurance companies could admit that the climate crisis is a crisis, why are the insurance companies insuring and investing in the industry, the fossil fuel industry, that is creating that crisis?
Crisis. And I don't think the insurance industry has a great answer. Do you, Frank?
Producer Frank: No, I think their answer would probably be, you know, we've got to do what's right for us in the short term, you know It's always about the short term but no in the long term when you just zoom out you realize how Insaneness is this like these, the different ways that these companies are profiting from the climate crisis.
Um, and I just also want to commend Rebecca Burns who wrote this story because it's a very complex story. And she did such a great job simplifying it, making it easy to read. So I recommend, you know, listeners go and read her full story at levernews. com. Um, and I'm hopeful that, you know, the more that these kinds of shenanigans, which is a kind way of putting it, uh, are exposed that people will start to get more and more wise to these things and hopefully, uh, more [00:13:00] public pressure will mount to stop companies from profiting off of the climate
David Sirota: And let me add one thing. The pressure should be in part on the insurance regulators. Insurance is mostly regulated at the state level. California has a Democratic insurance commissioner named Ricardo Lara. Uh, he can do more. Uh, so people actually do have a place to put their pressure. Uh, states have the power to prevent this nonsense.
Uh, and unfortunately in California that hasn't really happened. There's a very clear way for states to deal with this. It is through Your state's insurance commissioner. So if you're looking for a place to put pressure, that's the place to put pressure. Okay. Let's stop there because we should get to our main interview about, uh, the ongoing battle, for the economy, the battle playing out between labor and capital now focused, at least at the highest profile level, in Hollywood.
We have a big discussion about the writers and actors[00:14:00] unions going on strike together for the first time since 1960, up next we'll discuss what exactly is at stake with a WGA member who's written for a hit TV show. But first let's take a quick break.
David Sirota: Welcome back to Lever Time. For our main story today, we're talking about one of the most visible labor struggles of the last decade as Hollywood's writers and actors are now both on strike for the first time since 1960. Over the last decade, The economy of Hollywood has been completely upended by the advent of streaming services, uh, like Netflix, like Amazon Prime and the like, as well as by the consolidation of major entertainment companies, like the merger, for instance, of Warner Brothers and Discovery.
This has led to a content arms race as companies have competed to amass their own ever larger libraries of movies and TV shows. The result has been a shift to faster and [00:15:00] cheaper film productions, which have adversely affected almost all of Hollywood's rank and file workers. Earlier this year, the Writers Guild of America, aka the WGA, they represent TV and film writers, That union failed to reach a deal for a new contract with what's known as the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
That's the Hollywood studios, the networks, the streaming services. The writers main demands included increased pay for shorter productions, residuals. for streaming services and protections from artificial intelligence potentially taking their jobs. Yes, we're talking about chat, GPT, potentially writing scenes, writing screenplays and the like.
Studios love that idea because it would be cheap or even free. Writers obviously don't love that idea. That's also at issue, by the way, with the actors. . To give you an idea of what the writers are up against, last week, Deadline. com published an article in [00:16:00] which one anonymous studio executive said this.
Here's the quote. Quote, The end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments With another executive adding it's a cruel but necessary evil. And this past week, Disney CEO Bob Iger, who's paid hundreds of billions of dollars, gave an interview in which he said the writers are being quote, unrealistic and quote, very disruptive. This is an interview. With a guy who makes hundreds of millions of dollars.
An interview that took place at a so called billionaire summer camp in Sun Valley, Idaho, that was all prelude to last week, when the stakes were raised considerably. When SAG AFTRA, that's the union which represents film and TV actors, joined the writers on strike after SAG AFTRA failed to secure their own contract with the studios and the [00:17:00] networks and the streaming services.
And again, at issue in that, is also artificial intelligence. The actors are, concerned that studios want to basically scan them, their bodies and record their voices for one day of work, and then have the right to use their likeness. In as many ways as they want, in perpetuity, effectively for free.
While these strikes have become some of the most high profile strikes in recent memory because of the high profile nature of Hollywood, they also connect to the larger labor movement. They could have huge implications for the battle between capital and labor.
with the potential to energize labor struggles across the country. And there may be more strikes in more industries in the coming weeks. To help break down... All of this story that's playing out in Hollywood. What the meaning of it really is. What's really at issue. I'm going to be joined by WGA union member and [00:18:00] writer on the hit TV show The Bear, Alex O'Keefe.
Alex and I spoke about what the stakes are if the WGA's demands are not met. What it means now that the actors have joined the picket lines. And we discussed what these strikes mean for the resurgent labor movement in America.
Hey, Alex, how you doing?
Alex O'Keefe: I'm good. Nice to finally meet you, David.
David Sirota: Nice to meet you. And thanks for taking time with us today. Um, I should say I'm super jealous of you that you're in the WGA. I was a co winner of the WGA screenwriting award, uh, for don't look up, but I don't have enough writing credits to be in the WGA. So I'm, I know I'm, I'm super jealous. So,
Alex O'Keefe: Well, if I get on board, we're gonna change
David Sirota: there we, there we
Alex O'Keefe: be in the WGA. That's ridiculous. You wrote a lot of speeches. I think speechwriters might need to get in the WGA. You know how we get treated.
David Sirota: There you go. And of course, you as a WGA member are a billionaire. Um, all Hollywood writers get paid a [00:19:00] zillion dollars.
Um, and so nobody should have any complaints at all. Uh, I don't really understand why you guys are even complaining. You're all billionaires. I'm just kidding, of
course. So let's actually, it's a good place to start. Before we get to the... details of what the strike is about, just for folks who don't know or folks who are under the impression that all Hollywood writers are living the high life as billionaires or multi millionaires, just give us a sense of what the actual reality is for most Hollywood writers and actually Hollywood actors as well.
Alex O'Keefe: they, they've called Hollywood the dream factory. And like many factories, if you actually go on the factory floor, it's a grind. It's an assembly line. And it's not like every worker is pulled aside and said, Imagine, you know, live your wildest dreams. How do you think this factory should be run?
The factory has a system, and there's a couple overlords watching the factory workers, and you have to go as [00:20:00] fast as possible. And especially with the rise of streaming, there's more content than ever, but there's less time than ever to produce the content. And often less writers than ever, because of the rise of what they call mini rooms.
So, you are on an impossible deadline, and it's a lot like the show The Bear, if you watch that. Like, we definitely took energy from the writer's room and the crazed panic of getting these episodes in on time. Um, there's no education that can prepare you for it. You can read a screenplay writing book like Save the Cat, but the career, the culture, is completely foreign to me.
Um, as someone who comes from poverty, as someone who's been in the working class, it's completely foreign to me. So, that, the culture shock was very real to me. Um, the hierarchy was very, uh, apparent. The, um, in some places, toxicity was a lot more apparent and less, you know, hidden below the surface. But really, it's, it's sink or swim.
You, you get what [00:21:00] you put into it. But, it is not the, it, it is a dream job. But at the end of the day, a dream job is a job, and like any job, you're usually not getting paid enough, you're usually not being seen for all of your value, and that's a big reason why we're on strike. The, the, the escapism cloaks a lot of the lived reality of the day to day work.
David Sirota: You were involved in politics You then became a writer for what has become a hit show the bear which it should it should it's worth adding the bear Is a workplace show. I mean, it is fundamentally about a workplace.
It is, uh, it is about the working class. Um, some might say it's even about, uh, the class struggle there is underneath it. But all these things kind of blend into the same. overarching story of labor and capital. So just for folks to give them some context about where you come from, [00:22:00] how did you get into that world?
Alex O'Keefe: Oh, who knows? I think it's always kind of strange when it happens. But I was a movement leader, and I've been an organizer, a community organizer since I was a kid. Um, first doing it for Obama officially, politically, um, in 2012. But I was a director's assistant many years ago for a director named Jesse Peretz, and I did work on Girls and Glow and Trill, and I wasn't doing it necessarily to build a Hollywood career for myself.
I never really saw myself as that kind of cat. But I thought, if I can take some of this spectacle, And some of this Hollywood sheen that, uh, makes people so addicted to the content these days. And if I could apply that to our politics, we could take issues that are as dry as climate change and actually make it so interesting it can become one of the dominant themes of a political campaign.
So, , I left Hollywood the first time when I was an assistant, which is the lowest, the lowest of the low, [00:23:00] um, for Hollywood folks. And I, I went to build the Green New Deal campaign with the Sunrise Movement. And my official role at the Sunrise Movement was creative director, and I was also a campaign director of the Green New Deal.
The Sunrise Movement was this large youth movement, thousands of people, and what I did was make it look Huge. Make it look Hollywood. Um, do narrative campaigns. Understand... Organize the media. Organize the press. Give them what they want. Ultimately, they're driven by clicks and spectacle. So if you can produce a spectacle, if you can shoot it like it's a Hollywood historical biopic or something, They're going to want to show it.
They're going to want to follow you. They're going to want to catch that story. Um, Bernie Sanders was running in 2020. Uh, we built up a very large field operation towards that end, but really it was all about popularizing the Green New Deal, [00:24:00] popularizing a vision for dealing with the climate crisis that wasn't about, oh, weep for these poor polar bears, but was grounded in the working class struggle against the billionaire class.
Uh, that was causing climate change. So instead of having it be this individualized responsibility that we're all, you know, at fault for, we blame the fossil fuel CEOs. We, we force every political candidate on the Democratic side to sign the no fossil fuel money pledge. And we force all of them to create a climate change plan.
You know, I've been a speech writer for Warren and Ed Markey and a lot of different people.
And I respect a lot of those people, but ultimately, when you are so skilled... At playing the optics game, it kind of can make you sick to see how underneath the optics, there's nothing. There's no there there. You know, I tell you one story when I wrote a speech for Warren. It was the day that Neil Gorsuch got confirmed to the Supreme Court. And she came very [00:25:00] emotional. We were going to shoot a speech at the basement of the DNC. And the speech... Was edited to hell, noted to hell by many aides, as you know how it goes, um, and it was just really dry, just percentages and, you know, identity groups type democratic speech.
And, you know, she was talking to me and kind of venting about how hard it was. She still saw herself as this little girl from Oklahoma that grew up to become a senator somehow and came all this way just to see You know, a woman's right, or a person's right to an abortion gets stripped away, and as she walked out of that hall, when he was confirmed, she saw all these old white men who had just been in power for decades, cheering, laughing,
and... She said it just shouldn't be this way, and it was an emotional, it was real. And I said, why don't you just say that? And she said, well, I can't say that. We have legislative, uh, responsibilities, we have to do this, we have to talk about Social Security, and you know, that's a small example, um, of a [00:26:00] larger issue with our politics, of just, it's so false.
It's a show. It's a show, and it's not even a good show. You know, the characters are all unlikable. You know, there's no progression on their arc. They never change or get better or learn a single lesson They just all bicker at each other on msnbc and people watch it, but I said to myself, you know If i'm gonna contribute to this spectacle and to this show Let me try to do it in a different way and I wrote a screenplay.
I wrote a satire of america, um similar to you, you know, and it Got picked up by people that I had known when I was an assistant and within like a week and a half I had an interview with the showrunners of the bear and I Didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to do things the Hollywood way. I just spoke as an organizer I spoke from my heart about what I think this culture should look like That we should humanize Everyone not just black characters But also characters like Richie in the bear to see [00:27:00] underneath even who is seems like a belligerent white man that there is a yearning And that the workplace is this natural site where people come together and are forced to work across difference.
And they, they vied with it. So they brought me in to add some spice. Nobody thought that the show was going to be as big as it ended up being. And if anybody thought that, I'm sure I would not have been brought on. But I was just an X Factor. And I slipped in the door, and I came out with a WGA award, and it's nominated for an Emmy now, so.
I'm extremely grateful, but there was a lot of hardship along the way.
David Sirota: And you stumbled into it. I mean, I feel like I've heard a version of that story from every Hollywood writer. I know they sort of didn't have a plan. Uh, and they, they stumbled into it. So let's now turn to. What is at issue in the dispute between all of the writers and the major studios?
So What's the elevator pitch version of what is at stake? [00:28:00] What what are the? Conflict points between the Writers Union and the studios, streamers, and networks.
Alex O'Keefe: I think that it's a pretty simple thing to understand. And, you know, I'll take lines that you originally, you know, popularized. There's a 1%, and the rest of us are the 99%. And the 1% is designing the world exclusively for themselves. And that's not just, you know, It's billionaires, and they're designing and they're even leaving out the millionaires.
You know, they're even leaving out some of the, some of the rich Hollywood stars are being left out of the success. But really at the bottom, it's the young people. It's the new wave, it's the new diversity that's in Hollywood that's really being left out of sharing the success of streaming, sharing the success of Netflix.
Most people, they come home from work, they turn on Netflix. It has become a second life for so many people. It is generating so much revenue. But the people who are actually looking at a blank page and creating [00:29:00] these stories and these characters, not from thin air, but from their own souls, are being completely erased from the profits.
And, in response, the studios refuse to negotiate with us and they, they have a new plan, a new, a new wave of scabbing. Um, AI. They want AI to write our scripts, they want AI to make our content, and they have fed, Our scripts into AI, and AI isn't good enough yet to write anything worthwhile. Um, but also what we are fear is that we know very intimately, these execs don't care if the product is good.
They just care if the product is delivered on time, hits certain beats, and the audience remembers it from their childhood. Oh, I used to play with that toy. And that's all, that's all they really care about. So, this strike has really become a battle. of humanity against the machines. And we're not the only ones.
UPS is preparing to go on strike. The actors have gone on strike. It's the [00:30:00] first double strike since 1960. And there's a strike wave that we haven't seen in maybe a century. It's like the New Deal. It's like the Great Depression. And workers are rising up.
David Sirota: Some of the numbers don't make a lot of sense to me, uh, in this dispute. Uh, And I want to go over, uh, one of them which stands out. Uh, there was a report out... quoted in the Hollywood Reporter that said, that Moody's is estimating that what the unions are demanding would cost about four hundred to six hundred million dollars a year in concessions from the major studios. Disney CEO Bob Iger, one of the CEOs of one of the major studios, gave an interview where he said the writers are being, quote, unrealistic. and very disruptive. Now, here's the math part that I don't quite understand. Bob Iger, according to another report in the Hollywood Reporter, was paid nearly 500 million dollars over the last five years [00:31:00] himself.
So that's just one CEO of one of the studios. So, the math that I'm having trouble understanding here is, is If you take it as true that what the unions are demanding is 400 to 600 million dollars a year, and Bob Iger, one CEO of just one of the studios, made 500 million dollars over the last five years, now you multiply that by the other studio CEOs.
And then Bob Iger saying that what the unions are asking for is unrealistic. That doesn't make a lot of mathematical sense to me. It seems to me that if those numbers are true, the CEOs of these major studios could take a small pay cut and everything be fine. Am I missing something?
Alex O'Keefe: Oh no, that's it, but that's the problem. You know, Bob Iger, I really want everyone to look this up. He actually, in Vanity Fair a couple years ago, wrote a love letter to his yacht. And he describes [00:32:00] the yacht as, like, it's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Um, that's all these people care about.
There was a study I saw that... Being a billionaire or extreme wealth, it gives you brain damage. It, it, it starts to shrink the part of your brain that can relate to humanity and have empathy. And all you can relate to are objects. And, you know, these, these symbols of success. And so the people who are running Hollywood are no longer trying to be in the business of making good movies.
They're just in the business of getting bigger numbers to show Wall Street. It's not even necessarily material success. It's just these imaginary numbers based on the feelings of investors that the entire world is being run on. But ultimately what writers and actors were asking for is 2% of Hollywood's profits.
And that's only the profits that we have tracked. They're probably hiding a lot of profits if you know anything about rich people. Um, we're asking for 2% of Hollywood's profits, and that's too much for them. But it was very revealing, and this entire strike has been [00:33:00] very revealing because the, the AMPTP, the alliance of the studios and the streamers, and the corporations like Amazon, they've been so bad at PR, they've been telling on themselves.
And there was an anonymous Apple exec a month ago, Who said he admitted? You know what the writers are asking for is not that much. That's not the issue for them. It's the collateral Damage, it's all the other money that could be lost by giving the writers Something if we give the writers what they deserve then we'll have to give the actors then we'll have to give the crew then want to give the truck drivers and for Corporations like Amazon and Apple, they're invested in things far beyond entertainment in Hollywood.
If they show that a union can take on these giant global corporations that are this bigger than governments, well then maybe their truck drivers will want to go on strike. Maybe the Apple Store geniuses will want to go [00:34:00] on strike. In some ways, this strike wave has proven that out because writers are so skilled at telling the story of a moment, telling the story of a zeitgeist, it's helped inspire this strike wave and Amazon drivers are going on strike.
Apple employees are going on strike. Um, their worst fears are being realized, they think it's in their best interest to basically break the union.
That's their goal. They want to break the union. They don't want unions anymore in this town, but LA is a union town, and LA is seeing a strike wave like we haven't seen. Hotel workers are also going on strike, so they're in for a reality check.
David Sirota: By the way, here's that quote. Um, the quote was, it was from an Apple executive. And they were talking about the different demands from the writers at this point. And he said, um, it's apples to apples. It's not that simple.
Let's say agreeing to every union demand would cost 40 million a year. This is a quote, that's not a one off 40 million cost. That's at least [00:35:00] 40 million a year forever because that now sets a higher minimum cost for everything. And that expense will only increase in future negotiations.
Now here's the kicker. He goes on to say, but that contract also sets the bar for writers in other territories or encourages industries in some countries to unionize. In order to make more money, it's not so much the direct costs of a WGA deal, it's all of the fallout costs across the company. So that's somebody at Apple saying, essentially the way I read that is, if the WGA is allowed to succeed,
Alex O'Keefe: Yeah.
David Sirota: and have its demands met, Which are in the scope of hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars flowing into the industry.
If they are allowed to have their demands met, it will tell other people in other parts of the world, in other industries, that they can make demands as well. So that really is [00:36:00] what is it's, it's like the principle is at stake. But, but to be clear, what I appreciate about this quote is that it's not an academic principle.
Right. I mean, this is the hardest of hard nosed business. This is an executive saying not I'm making an academic argument. This is the executive saying we can't allow workers to think. That they can make demands for more resources that we're used to using to pay executive pay, uh, dividends to shareholders and the like.
So there is something really at stake here, obviously, for the richest of rich people in the whole world.
right? I mean, some people can look at these strikes and say, oh, you know, it's Hollywood writers, Hollywood actors, it's a sort of a narcissistic industry and, you know, who really cares about them. But the flip side is, is that, especially the actors, these are some of the most high profile people in the whole world.
So, they do focus the [00:37:00] public's attention and I think that is a point of, uh, real opportunity here for, , some education. Now, speaking of executives being quoted, uh, about what's really at stake here. Some of Hollywood's executives, uh, recently screamed other parts of the quiet part out loud. Uh, last week in Deadline, they quoted an anonymous studio executive who said, and here's the quote.
Quote, the end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their homes. Talking about the writer's strike. So we're going to starve them out. We're going to starve them into submission. Do you think this was a bluff? Do you think this is sort of blustery tough talk?
Or do you think that these studios are really serious? That they are really ready to try to create, uh, some real poverty here, real pain, in order to get what they want.[00:38:00]
Alex O'Keefe: Creating poverty would be nothing new for them. I live in Los Angeles now. You walk down the street, there's unhoused people everywhere. That was created. None of this is natural, you know? Debt does not flow down the river, you know? Coal does not burn in the wild. These are always choices that somebody is making.
It's just a very small group of men make these choices. And they want to continue being the ones to make choices, whether their choices are good or not, whether their bets, um, work or not. They know they'll always get bailed out. But I, I believe them. I know that that was a scare tactic. But I believe them because they have not even negotiated with us, like not, they have offered no concessions, they refuse to negotiate, they want to break us, and they had probably a team of accountants, a someone in their offices that's still employed for now, determined how long, let's see what the majority of riders income is, how long would it take them to be homeless, and they determined, [00:39:00] late October.
David Sirota: So I, I think then the question becomes, Well, how long do you think the writer's union can hold out? Because let's just, let's just like really game this out for a
Alex O'Keefe: Yeah,
David Sirota: There is going to be a point.
If you take this executive at his word, that writers and rank and file actors, uh, you know, not the A listers who can, who can wait it out because they've made so much money, but I'm talking about the rank and file folks in Hollywood, there's going to be a moment where the shit is going to hit the fan, you can't pay the mortgage, you can't pay the rent, like, how long do you think The actors and writers can hold out.
Like, let's be realistic here.
Alex O'Keefe: I really honestly believe as long as it takes and This is not any kind of moral statement. I'm not trying to be badass. It's not it's not a talking point It really is that existential that if we let them win this time our career will be gone In the next ten years just like [00:40:00] with journalism I mean we have seen what they have done and how they've carved up journalism and now Journalists are being replaced by A.
I. to write copy for whatever sponsored brand pays them for it. All I can say is that it's hard to threaten a writer with being broke.
Because I was broke working for the bear. I was broke working for one of the biggest shows on TV. I was making below the poverty line, um, on, on that show. I was not flown to L. A. to be part of the writer's room. I zoomed in from my computer. It was the pandemic winter in New York City, my tiny apartment. I had a space heater under my desk to keep me warm.
And sometimes I'd plug in that space heater and all the power would go out in the apartment. I'd have to go to a public library and whisper ideas for my episode. That's what's already going on.
They're paying us very late as well. They're paying you so late that, you know, by the end, [00:41:00] you don't even get the money until the end of the show, so you're just struggling. So it's really hard to threaten someone with that sort of thing. Writers will maybe have to find other jobs. I'm looking at grocery store jobs.
I have a lot of friends at this point. Professional writers who are already working second jobs while they were working on TV shows, they've taken away the promise of a middle class career. And so when you no longer have the promise, you have nothing to lose.
I don't feel like if we break the strike, I have any kind of good career to go back to. I have often a toxic workplace in some writers rooms or some executive suites. And I also am not making very much. I'm making as much as what I made when I was doing working class service industry jobs.
And we're not getting any share of the profit. For the bear, you know, or Abbott Elementary. My friend Brittany works on Abbott Elementary. You get cents on the dollar for residuals. You don't see any share of the success, so what do we have to lose?
And I think a lot of workers feel [00:42:00] that way. They pushed us so far. They've degraded our conditions so long that we have nothing left to lose, and we have everything to gain.
David Sirota: Let me give folks a couple of stats here. This one stat about actors is kind of amazing to me. I think it'll kind of blow people's minds. The minimum amount of money. An actor must take home in a single year to qualify for the SAG Union's. Health insurance is $26,470. According to one SAG board member, just 12.7% of SAG ARA members qualify for the union's health plan.
In other words, roughly 88% of SAG AFTRA members. Do not make more than $26,000. So you got 160,000 people in SAG aftra. Uh, 88% of them aren't making more than 26,000. You do the math. [00:43:00] That's tens of thousands of people, most of the, of that union, not even making enough to qualify for the union's healthcare plan. That, to me is emblematic of what. Hollywood really is Hollywood in a sense, reflects the reality of the American economy writ large. There is a top 1% that gets paid a shitload, probably top 0.001% that gets paid a shitload and there really isn't much of a middle. And then there's a, a huge sort of bottom rung, uh, where the 99% is, which is basically, I've just described the, the American economy.
Right? I mean, that's that's the whole American economy. So all of that is context for what I am concerned about, not how long the strike can can hold for, but how it can be fortified to achieve the demands that workers deserve to see achieved. And the concern is this, [00:44:00] that the very very well remunerated writers, the very, very well remunerated and famous writers and actors all together have obviously a disproportionate amount of the money and a disproportionate amount of the, the fame, a disproportionate amount of the political capital.
Alex O'Keefe: Mm hmm.
David Sirota: At some point, I worry that they say, well, look. I want to go back to work, , I want to star in the next movie, I want to write the next big blockbuster, and I'm being held back by all these other folks here, uh, who aren't as good as me, aren't as quote unquote talented as I am, and they're making me stay on strike.
Those are the fractures that I'm, I'm guessing that the studio executives are banking on. Um, And, and I, I just wonder how you having worked, for instance, on a hit show as just a rank and file writer, no disrespect, like somebody in the 99% we're talking about.
Alex O'Keefe: I'm proud of that.
David Sirota: [00:45:00] Right? Like, how, how concerned are you that there will be a sort of class fracturing inside of Hollywood itself?
Alex O'Keefe: You know, I've talked to a lot of union leaders and a lot of showrunners who are at the top, the head writers of writer's rooms, about this. And they said that this strike just feels very different. Because that's always been AMPTP's strategy, divide and conquer. Um, but at the beginning of this strike, there was a big showrunner meeting, actually, to bring all the showrunners together.
Because they do have a lot of influence, like you're saying. They have overall deals, they have large amounts of money that they are losing. Um, versus, you know, just a sustenance living that I'm losing, that I can replace by going to work at a grocery store. Um, but there was so much solidarity. There is a great amount of cross class solidarity in the guild right now.
And of course, you can't promise anything. Um, but the thing that is interesting is that showrunners are as pissed off as [00:46:00] staff writers. And that's not usually how it is. The people at the top of the writer's room are as angry as the people at the bottom of the writer's room. Because they also are being locked into deals.
And they are being told, you're gonna make, you know, 200, 000 or something. Um, so it sounds like a lot of money at the time. But then they stretch these deals and they stretch these orders out for years. That when you're actually working on it, you end up making as much as you made in your second or third year in the business.
So they've screwed over a lot of showrunners and a lot of showrunners are not seeing the profits of the success of their shows. So they feel like they have so much more to lose if they go back to the old system than to gain. Yeah, they could gain another overall deal or whatever, but they've all lived through it and also just...
The culture of Hollywood has really changed, and this is the other thing I hear from the top people in the guild. It used to be, it's always been a twisted business, but the guys who are at the top really cared about [00:47:00] movies. They want to make movies, man, you know, uh, Bob Evans types. The people who are at the top of, especially since Netflix has come through, it has kind of brought a tech bro thinking to Hollywood.
So no longer do people actually care about. The quality of the movie, you get notes from execs about the algorithm and appealing to Chinese audiences and just a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with creativity. So it's a degradation of our creative freedom that makes this job actually fun. And instead they have such a content mentality that people just no longer feel like the business they entered.
I hear this all the time. It's unrecognizable. It's been completely carved out. So. And PTP will try to do that, and there are some top showrunners like Taylor Sheridan or Ryan Murphy who have not been in Solid Dignity. But ultimately, what I like about this guild, what I [00:48:00] like about this union, what I appreciate, it's a democracy.
So ultimately, it takes all of us to vote on a new contract and ratify it. When we voted to do a strike authorization vote, it was about 98%. of members voted. So I guess you have 2%, just like you might have 1%, who are making a lot of money. But in a true democracy, run by workers for workers, that 1% does not have as much power.
And what is different about 2007 versus now, there's a larger labor movement around us. And also there's social media. In 2007, you would never hear from a staff writer. You would never hear a staff writer sharing their experience or their ideas of how Hollywood should work. You would never hear that. The Guild wouldn't put them on the front.
And so the rank and file, that's why we've been speaking out, because we want to make sure that our needs are met, and that it's not the, whatever contract we end up with is not just [00:49:00] benefiting the top one or two percent of the guild, it's benefiting these young, creative thinkers who are far more diverse than the previous generation.
It's benefiting them, it's actually building them a middle class career, not just a series of gigs.
David Sirota: We talked earlier in this show, uh, about how the last time both... unions, the actors union and the writers union were simultaneously on strike was in 1960. The strike was led in part by none other than that, uh, lefty, hippie, radical, uh, Ronald Reagan, uh, which is kind of mind boggling to think about. And also mind boggling to think about, if you can get your head beyond that, is the fact that they were striking over almost The same kinds of stuff.
I mean, there wasn't A. I. That's different at that time. It was about what the networks would pay the actors. Um, it wasn't streaming services. . It was the original T. [00:50:00] V. And the like, but it was the same kind of thing. It was, you know, how much of the actors entitled to the remuneration for and the writers internal to the remuneration for the work that they create.
Um, and I think fundamentally at issue here is who creates
Alex O'Keefe: Yeah.
David Sirota: And I can hear, like I can almost hear some listeners hearing this and saying, well, you know, uh, actors are paid well and writers are paid well. And it's a, it's a passion industry. And like, if you want to be a writer, you're taking a risk or you want to be an actor, you're taking a risk.
And by the way, you hear this kind of. Attitude when it comes to professional athletes strikes, right? Like, Oh, you know, these athletes are paid well, what, you know? And, and I always get to the point where I'm like, well, listen. You can have an issue with, uh, the American public spending a lot of money on sports. You can have an issue with how much the American public spends on [00:51:00] movies and television shows, but if that money is going to be spent, then the real question is, well, who should get the biggest share of that money?
You think it's immoral that Americans spend so much money on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon. That's a separate issue then. If the money is going to be spent, who deserves the lion's share of the money? The people who created the value or the people who own the, the, the conduit, like the middle man, right?
And I put it on social media, you know, nobody has posters. Or no, no. Non sociopath has posters of Bob Iger, you know, Disney's CEO on their wall. They have posters of Marvel movies and, you know, famous actors and, they venerate the people who write these movies and the like, it's, it's the, the value is the creative talent.
There is no 498 million payout to Bob Iger without. The people who created the Star Wars franchise, which Disney now, now owns. [00:52:00] So, to me, that's what's at issue here. If we as a society are going to be spending money on things, as much of the money as possible should go to the people who create said thing.
And, and I just, I just wonder, like, do you think the public, looking at this from the outside, Whether it's this, by the way, or a, you know, an NFL strike or the like, or, you know, by the way, you can broaden it out to, you know, musicians fight with ticket master. Another example. Do you think the public has like a sense of that?
Or do you think the public sees this all is just, you know, millionaires fighting with billionaires?
Alex O'Keefe: There was a poll recently conducted, um, this was before the actor strike, but Americans were asked, what are your opinions on... The writer's strike and 70% of Americans said they approve of the writer's strike, which is far more popular than our Congress, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or any politician really out there.
Um, Americans are all [00:53:00] suffering under some boss somewhere and they're working for McDonald's and McDonald's makes tons of money and the workers see nothing. They are kept there. So even just as a metaphor, I think a lot of people can get behind it. And I've heard from so many people, I have a Republican family in Florida, and they told me like, wow, I'm so inspired by this.
Class creates solidarity, you know, and the 1% has a lot of solidarity. And that's why Ronald Reagan somehow led a strike to win people healthcare and win people profit sharing. And then was the guy who... destroyed the labor movement by, um, breaking the air traffic controller strike. Um, but at the time, he had a personal stake in that strike, so he was going to goddamn win it.
So when we have a material thing to gain, we have something to win. What the audience is, and the American [00:54:00] public has to gain, is new episodes of The Bear, new episodes of Abbott Elementary. Those are the things that they are fans of. Yeah, they don't, they don't... They don't have posters of Bob Iger, they don't have, you know, uh, Netflix paraphernalia, they don't love the rebrand of Max and just celebrate that, and billionaires and CEOs resent that.
They believe they should be the titans. They believe they should be worshipped. And they have never gotten this kind of threat. on this level in their lifetime. So they have not adjusted so far. They're very smug. They believe they are going to win.
But when you push people to the limit, they are sparking something that's far bigger than the writer's strike. It's far bigger than my next paycheck. That's the thing. And that's why I'm speaking up about this. If this was just about me and my personal plight on working on a big TV show, I wouldn't be talking about this.
David Sirota: I want to add to that, that [00:55:00] it's a good segue for where we are now. I mean, it is kind of amazing my mind. I mean, yeah, Watching Fran Drescher, the nanny, saying this, quote, Eventually the people break down the gates of Versailles and then it's over. We're at that moment right now. Fran Drescher, the head of the SAG union, the actors union.
I mean, to me... That, that represents, that reflects an epic shift in the overall culture, a good shift, a shift in which, in which clearly what somebody like Bernie Sanders has been saying for 30, 40, 50 years is now so mainstream that even the culture industry itself is sort of Saying it as a given. So I do think the the Overton window, if you will, of the consciousness and the culture has really moved in a good [00:56:00] direction.
I mean, it's long overdue. I mean, it's I mean, just as an aside, it's incredible how docile. This country's population is how much abuse this country's population is willing to take. I mean, I think I might've said this before an earlier episode of this podcast that, you know, in France, as an example, and I'm not saying they're perfect either, but like a politician whispers, the idea of pension cuts and outcome, the protests and the threats of the guillotines here, the American working class has been ground into a fine dust for 40 years.
Uh, and there has been very little peep, but it seems to be changing right now. So the last question I want to ask you is this. If you could wave a wand and look at the WGA strike, the SAG strike, it's successful. What does success look like? In this specific fight, what does that mean? And what do you hope to see come out of that success for other labor [00:57:00] battles that are simmering right now?
You mentioned the Teamsters, UPS, etc, etc. Like what, what, what is success at the WGA and SAG and Hollywood? What does that specifically look like? And what do you think could be the outgrowth?
Alex O'Keefe: I really can't predict what the contract is going to look like. I'm not in the room, and there's also no one in the room right now. So, at this point, we have no idea what they are willing to concede on. So I can speak on a more general idea. Let's talk about levers of power, right? That's what this podcast is all about.
I think you and I both spent a lot of time trying to maneuver the political levers of power in this country. And eventually, many progressives hit a wall. Because the establishment was extremely strong, vindictive, hateful, and will destroy you if you speak up with authenticity. And we saw that. And eventually, I got tired of [00:58:00] fighting that same repetitive battle.
Now, there's other levers of power, and the other two levers of power that I think are very significant in America is our labor power and our cultural power. I think so much of, like you said, it's an ideological thing. Americans are very docile because we have an opiate, you know? We have this thing that we can turn on and watch and tune out of what is actually happening in the world.
And on the flip side, we don't have effective communications. About what's happening in the world. You don't know how to fight back. And we don't usually see those fighters.
Those people like Bernie Sanders who are just authentic and speak what's true. That breaks through. Um, I think that's what's happening with this strike. So what I would hope to happen, on one end, is just Americans get in touch with the reality of our situation. Writers, and actors, directors, all get in touch with the reality of our situation.
How to maneuver your [00:59:00] power to win. This is so important to know. Because no matter what happens with this contract, we're not going to win on everything. And Hollywood is not going to be a perfect place afterwards. We have to be aware of what our levers of power are. And continue to push on them. Continue to experiment.
To take this moment and make it a movement. I want to see a cultural movement that matches and aids the labor movement. I want to see that dual power be built in this country. Because if we are able to build that, we might actually beat these billionaires. Because we do have more numbers. We do have more talent.
We can tell the story, and our labor creates the world that they live in. If we rescind our labor, they no longer make money. If we rescind our labor en masse, They no longer can enjoy the lives of luxuries that they enjoy. I believe in this country, and it's a big reason why I left politics, because I would talk to people like [01:00:00] AOC and Bernie, and I said, we have to focus on, I'm telling you, I haven't said this publicly, maybe I shouldn't say this publicly, but I said, we have to build towards a general strike.
To be quite honest with you, I'll say this to you, um, we have to build strike waves that create the muscle in the American people and every union of how to strike to actually have a livable life. And Hollywood might be the biggest megaphone and the best metaphor for the contradictions of American life and this economy.
But it is not where, it cannot end with me getting a great six picture deal with Disney Plus. That's not what this is about. And the individual success, for any of us, for me or any of us, In light of a world that's on fire, triple digit temperatures across the country, our individualism must go away. We must find ourselves in the collective.
We must nurture this culture of solidarity. And I hope this culture of solidarity that I see every day on the picket line in Hollywood, we can keep that. [01:01:00] We can build a new culture industry that's about speaking to the people. Reflecting them. Because I know everyone says, well that would be boring, that no one would want to watch that.
Everyone said that about the bear before it got released. And now it's this huge cultural phenomenon. Because working people simply want to see their own lives. that's what people want. They desire it. Look at what won Best Picture, Parasite.
Look at the biggest TV show, Squid Game. People are sick and tired of this system, but they don't know the alternative, and they don't know how to fight back. So we have to tell that story, and we have to make it more entertaining than anything the billionaire class can produce.
David Sirota: Alex O'Keefe is a member of the Writers Guild of America and has been a writer on the TV series The Bear, which I highly recommend. He's currently running for a board seat for the WGA West. Alex, thank you so much for taking time with us today and thanks for articulating all of what you've articulated.
And that last point you made about [01:02:00] solidarity, I just want to underscore it. It is so, so important. Alex, thanks again.
Alex O'Keefe: Thank you, David. Solidarity forever.
David Sirota: That's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get Lever Time Premium, you also get access to our regular bonus episodes.
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The Lever Time Podcast is a production of the Lever and the Lever Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, [01:03:00] David Sirota. Our producer is Frank Capello with help from the Lever's lead producer, Jared Jackang Mair.