One word you're hearing a lot during the current Hollywood strike is "residuals." We writers usually get paid when our work is reused…sometimes not a lot but something. I co-wrote one Love Boat back in the seventies and about once every other year, I get money because it aired again in Botswana or somewhere. The last payment was under two dollars, which is probably less than it cost them to process the check. Sometimes, the amounts are more formidable and there are writers who will gladly tell you of the time their house was about to be foreclosed or their kid needed emergency medical treatement…and a residual check arrived at the perfect time to prevent personal financial disaster.
I get occasional questions here from folks who work in industries that don't operate that way, asking about why we get residuals; why someone gets paid again when they didn't do additional work. So a while ago here, I wrote this response which has received so many hits that I wish I got residuals for that. Take a look if you missed it.
But it needs a P.S. and this is it. I received the following message the other day from a prominent writer of TV, books, comics and other stuff…
What's the reasonable answer to give to some jackass who tries to diminish the importance of residuals by wanting to know why lighting guys, sound guys, and various other technicians aren't equally entitled?
Well, part of the reasonable answer is that many of them do. They just don't get them directly. There are many Hollywood unions that have negotiated residuals deals. It's just that unlike the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild, the check doesn't go directly to the individual. It goes to the union's health and/or pension plan. A lot of technicians pay low dues and get health insurance because of these residuals.
The Directors Guild is currently mounting a little crusade to remind everyone, including its own members, that all its members benefit from residuals even if they do not receive checks in the mail like my bi-annual Love Boat largesse. The DGA, as you may know, is full of directors but it also has among its membership, assistant directors, stage managers, and production associates in television, and directors, assistant directors, unit production managers, and technical coordinators. Directors receive WGA/SAG style residual checks directly. The others generally do not but they receive them in other ways. Recently, Gil Cates (President of the DGA) was interviewed and he explained…
Over the last ten years, residuals to our below-the-line members and to the Basic Pension Plan amount to more than 1/2 billion dollars. In addition, in 2006, over $44 million in residual benefits were paid directly into the DGA Basic Pension Plan by the companies. This represents 71% of all the funds contributed into our Basic Pension Plan benefiting all members. In other words, even if a member never works on a project that generates residuals in their entire career, when that member retires and become eligible to receive a pension, they will share in the benefits created by the residuals that go into the Basic Pension Plan every year.
I am told — and it certainly is no coincidence — that stats like these have been mentioned a lot recently in the Directors Guild's magazine and in various mailings to members. There could be a big residuals battle looming for the DGA in their new contract and they obviously wanted to prepare their rank 'n' file for that war.
There are, of course, those in Hollywood who do not get residuals in any way, shape or form…just as there are those in Hollywood who are not paid well, period. Some people are in that category, perhaps because they have no union or a weak union. It's difficult — in some cases, impossible — to negotiate residuals all by yourself. If you want to know why some professions aren't "entitled" to residuals, the answer is pretty much the same as the answer as to why some professions are paid so much less than others. They just are…because so few in their job description have had the leverage to demand more and set some precedents. Unfortunately in show business, you don't get something because you deserve it. You get it because you have the clout to get it.