As a seasoned gamer who has spent countless hours immersed in virtual worlds, I find myself often comparing real-life situations to the intricate systems and economies within these games. And let me tell you, the labor market in Hollywood is more complex than any MMORPG I’ve ever played!
2023 marked a significant milestone for the labor sector in Hollywood, with actors and writers jointly declaring an unprecedented strike to redefine the evolving industry. This struggle centered around contemporary topics like AI and remuneration in the era of streaming. Notably, the leading negotiators during this industrial action, along with those from the directors’ union, were among the highest-paid labor leaders in Hollywood.
SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland led the pack with a gross salary of $1,016,182, according to the labor group’s latest LM-2 filing, a form of annual financial reports for unions. He was followed by Directors Guild of America national executive director Russell Hollander, with a gross salary of $775,000, and Writers Guild of America West executive director Ellen Stutzman, whose gross wages constituted $682,692. (The figures compiled by The Hollywood Reporter included data from both 2024 and 2023 LM-2s, whichever constituted the latest filings, spanning a period between Jan. 1, 2023-April 30, 2024. These salaries represent the wages of union leaders during the 2023 Hollywood strikes.)
In the same timeframe, Matthew Loeb, who had served as IATSE’s top officer for 16 years, earned a total salary of $553,487, placing him fourth in terms of earnings. Alvin Vincent Jr., executive director of Actors’ Equity, the Broadway actor and stage manager union, received $437,528. As for the Motion Picture Editors Guild, Cathy Repola, the national executive director (who has since stepped down), took home $374,210, while Lowell Peterson, former executive director of WGA East, earned $349,061.
Leaders from Teamsters’ entertainment unions, Thomas J. O’Donnell of Local 817 and Lindsay Dougherty of Local 399, were among the lowest paid in their positions. In the New York area, O’Donnell earned $312,325, while Dougherty, based in L.A., made $272,962. It’s important to note that Dougherty’s total includes her salary as the principal officer for Local 399 and her income from her role as a vice president of the international union.
2023 data shows that a small number of entertainment industry labor leaders were among the highest-earning union officials in the country. Specifically, only 90 employees from national unions out of a total of 12,753 earned more than $350,000, as reported by Marick Masters, a professor emeritus at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business who specializes in union spending. In the top 20 highest-paid union employees who filed LM-2 reports in 2023, three were from the entertainment sector, while the remaining 17 were from the Air Line Pilots Association and National Football League Players Association. It is important to note that this data does not include elected officers or local unions, whose salaries can be substantial, and it focuses on total compensation, including reimbursements for official business expenses.
According to Masters, many well-compensated individuals, such as airline pilots, professional athletes, directors, screen actors, and writers, constitute a significant portion of their respective groups. These high-earning members have sufficient resources to hire representatives on their behalf.
From my perspective as a passionate admirer, it’s Robert Bruno, the professor and director at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Labor and Employment Relations, who doesn’t find entertainment labor leaders’ wages to be excessively disproportionate. He believes that factors like average or median earnings for union members, the size of the union, the impact workers have on their industry’s wealth, and the specifics of individual contracts are crucial in this discussion. Since the entertainment industry has the potential to distribute astronomical earnings to certain creative professionals within unions, these figures wouldn’t appear unusually high in Bruno’s view, he explains.
One point to take into account is the amount that industry leaders, such as union heads, should aim for in terms of pay, according to Bruno’s viewpoint. And when it comes to Hollywood studios and streaming platforms, they aren’t stingy with their salary budgets. For instance, in 2023, during an extended double strike, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and president David Zaslav, Disney CEO Bob Iger, and former Paramount president and CEO Bob Bakish all earned more than $30 million – which is nearly 30 times the latest reported earnings of Crabtree-Ireland.
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2024-09-06 02:57