I’ve been reading. I know, right? I was fascinated by David Canfield’s recent Vanity Fair article as well as Wayne Federman’s 2011 Atlantic article about the 1960 strike. How little I know about my union’s history–both of them.
By the 1960s, the grandfather of streaming was known by its two-letter abbreviation: TV. And while entertainment laborers weren’t concerned with some sci-fi nonsense stealing their bodies, faces, and voices (now a reality–and, let’s face it, soon to be a reality TV show), they were concerned about the big R: residuals.
Movies were now on the small screen, and studios were cashing those checks from TV ad revenue. The labor… wasn’t.
The Writers Guild of America struck the Association of Television and Film Producers for 22-weeks (we are going into week 13 now).
What did the writers gain?

• First residuals for films–1.2% of the license fee when features were licensed to television.
• An independent pension plan
• 4% residual for television reruns, domestic and foreign.
• A pension fund and health insurance.

This brings me to the Federman article and Mr. Trickle-Down Economics.
Reagan, then a liberal Democrat, was “instrumental in securing residuals for television actors when their episodes were re-run.” Did you catch that? Television actors; NOT film actors (what do we keep hearing about divide and conquer?).
The SAG strike (no merger with AFTRA yet) and negotiations resulted in actor residuals for all studio films made starting in 1960.
Many actors wanted retroactive residuals (which they didn’t get) and called the Reagan deal “the great giveaway.”
The compromise: The producers agreed to a one-time payout of $2.25 million, a contribution SAG would use as seed money for a new union health insurance plan and a pension plan.
While Reagan went on to wage a war on the working class, and while James Garner contended that, “Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say,” the 1960 deals serve as a model of small steps forward and compromise.
We could also just burn it all down and make cool shit on a shoestring budget.