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Comment by timbit42 | Hacker News Reader

They do but an even better option is worker cooperatives which bring democracy and fair profit sharing to the workplace.

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WGA is a guild, technically, not a union — because most writers are 1099d by studios, not actually full-time employees. Hence the need for collective protections, as contractors in the US have much less guarantees than W2 employees, and thus a co-op structure is almost infeasible any way you look at it.

WGA as a co-op obviously wouldn't make sense. The studio itself is what should ideally be a co-op.

Or the WGA should start creating their own movies, of course.

As someone close to the industry, this was an interesting thing to think about -- but without some other, huge structural changes to the industry, it won't really happen.

1) Distribution is where studios' value-add really comes through: they're the ones who have contracts with the big theater chains (or, in the case of tv, often own the networks+streaming services) and are in control of the dates/weekends/IMAX exclusivities/etc.

2) Financing - Movies and TV are _expensive_. It's not just the high-profile actors or marketing budgets – indeed, many high-profile actors will take huge pay-cuts to work on passion projects – but, if you were to take away those costs, and for sake of argument let's say that everyone acting/shooting/editing the movie is working for free, there's still huge capital expenses to be outlaid: location fees, permit fees, cameras (even a single indie-film camera can be upwards of $50k), sets + construction, props, editing+vfx software, food, transport, clothing, makeup, logistics and infrastructure including things as fundamental as electricity and plumbing if you're filming anywhere that's not a backlot... It takes a huge capital upfront outlay to make a movie or tv show that looks anything like what we're used to seeing on tv and movie screens. Studios can (a) provide the upfront cash and deal structure such that financing the productions is feasible in the first place (b) re-use and cost-optimize everything from sets/space/cameras/software/support-staff across productions where it makes sense, so a show or movie isn't having to re-invent everything from the ground up each time.

The closest right now the WGA or SAG can possibly be to "creating their own movies" is working with an indie studio, like A24 or NEON, who are still very much studios, but often with a more "can-do" and "per-production" approach. These studios also settled with WGA and SAG very soon after the strikes began, and were granted strike waivers so they could continue production, while the Disneys and Netflixes were picketed.

In short, unlike software engineers where a single dedicated engineer can pretty much create an app or business mvp in a weekend, writers and actors deal with the constraints of the real-world.

I agree. I'm kind of surprised more unions haven't taken responsibility for opening up co-ops. They have lots of money to do it, it's pro-worker, and it enables them to own the means of production.

Unions ironically act very conservative these days. They could take some bold steps to potentially create very worker-friendly, worker-owned shops, which would create a voluntary, non-coercive path towards the "market socialist" structure many people advocate.

Even in large industries like automobiles where this is hard, they could probably start doing something like smaller-scale parts production and sell those.

> I'm kind of surprised more unions haven't taken responsibility for opening up co-ops

Because that requires skillsets they don't have. People with the skills to start, manage and run companies usually aren't workers so not a part of the union, and I doubt the union members would be happy if the union spent lots of money to hire managers to bet on a startup.

> Because that requires skillsets they don't have.

This is reductive, union organizers have management skills that would transfer over if needed. The reason co-ops are not more common is moreso because there aren't the same kinds of institutions that support their growth like there are for traditional companies.

Because the real title should be Unions Work For Union Members. Unions became unpopular for a reason. Some were (and I assume still are) outright criminal organizations. The better ones were happy to sell out future workers with two tiered pay structures and by rotting out the companies they worked for.

In practice they have just been another layer of economically unproductive people siphoning off value.

Unions are working to fight the two tier wage structure you speak of; are you aware? UPS/Teamsters is one such example.

Because after 15 years the balance of power has tipped from those who sold out to those that were sold.

Ok, so can you explain how that shift in the balance of power does NOT invalidate your parent point?

Because it's still the union doing what's best for union members. The only thing that's changed is what's best for the union members.

unions should work for their members. If a union isn't working for the interests of the members, that union's leadership needs to be replaced. Corporations are only concerned with increasing profit. They aren't interested in protecting workers from being exploited. Some corporations were (and I assume still are) outright criminal organizations. Let corporations worry about protecting their bottom line, and let unions worry about protecting their members.

There are film studios that are run as cooperatives. They tend to not have a lot of access to capital markets and don't make the kind of bland, inoffensive to Chinese censors nostalgia puffs that bring in a billion dollars globally and fund the Disneys of the world, so the Disneys of the world are still going to employ more writers.

> ...opening up co-ops.

Word.

IIRC: SEIU, or equally large org, has been funding employee co-ops.

Also IIRC: Richard Wolfe coined worker directed social enterprises (WDSE) to encompass all the democracy and co-op notions.

Having done some (very modest) workplace democracy, and seen the results, I'm very bullish. I read Wolfe's book Democracy at Work when it came out. It was a (very modest) good start. But needed a lot more work developing the ideas. Especially wrt governance and operations.

Enough time has passed, I should circle back and see how things have progressed.

> Unions ironically act very conservative these days.

In multiple ways.

In the US, the transition from representing predominately white middle class blue collar workers to representing all workers has been very bumpy.

Labor in the US would be so much further along today if unions had also abandoned their commitment to the Cold War Consensus when Capital did. Anti labor measures like NAFTA should have been wake up calls.

Any pointers on how to turn an existing company into a worker co-op or employee owned company?

Historically, co-ops arise from the ashes of a dead or dying company where the workers know the process inside and out.

Edit: the other instances (much fewer) are when the company founders either start with a co-op in mind or want to transition their company to one as part of their legacy

Get together with other employees and buy it from the owners.

No point in giving cash to exploitative bosses who are burning you out. Just take yourselves next door and hang a new shingle.

How do you define "fair profit sharing" and what are the owners' "fair share" in your definition?

To start, every worker is an owner in a worker cooperative. Mondragon requires a financial investment in the cooperative upon hiring. A fair share would be based on the size of each worker's investment in the company. How it is regulated is set by each cooperative so there is no real answer to your question.

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