It ain’t no fun if the writers can’t have none

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Snoop Dogg’s classic debut album Doggystyle, the entirety of which he was supposed to perform at the Hollywood Bowl this summer. The anniversary comes one year after he headlined the Super Bowl halftime performance with other hip hop luminaries.

In May, however, Snoop postponed the show to October. Then, last week, he announced the show’s cancellation.  

Hold up, hey! Nothing could be more celebratory than bringing the album to life at Los Angeles’ most iconic venue, so what gives? The answer is his support for the writers and actors on strike.

As Snoop wrote on Instagram, “We continue to stand in solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters in the WGA [Writers Guild of America] and SAG/AFTRA during this difficult time and remain hopeful that the [studios] will come back to the negotiating table with a REAL proposal and we can all get back to work.”

In canceling what was sure to be two sold-out shows, Snoop put teeth to earlier statements he made at a panel hosted by economic think tank the Milken Institute — hardly the bastion of labor movement solidarity — shortly after the writers started the strike in May. Drawing a parallel between writers and music artists, Snoop excoriated the streamers for hiding data artists can use to measure success and use as leverage for better compensation.

“When I first came out, my records would sell off of physical. If you sold a million copies — $9.99, nine million dollars, you get this percentage, that’s what it is,” he said. “So if I sell how many streams, how much money do I get? It’s not being translated, and it’s not working for the artist right now, and I just want to speak to that in the music industry. That’s f —ed up, and we need to figure that out, the same way the writers are figuring out. The writers are striking because [of] streaming. They can’t get paid.” 

Indeed, despite the streaming boom of the last decade, the median weekly pay for writer-producers has declined by 23 percent in the same time period. Everyone at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the entity that represents the studios at the bargaining table, knows that. 

Yet Disney CEO Bob Iger recently stated the writers are not being realistic with their demands for minimum compensation and residuals for the reuse of their work. When a reporter followed up and asked why that was the case, Iger replied, “I can’t answer that question.” Iger’s evasion is telling: He has nothing to back up his claim. 

So why does Iger think it is unrealistic for writers to demand better compensation and transparency, so they can, in Snoop’s words, “understand how the f—- you get paid off of that s—?” There are two options. Either the studios are unwilling to pay writers fairly or they cannot afford to. The latter seems very unlikely.

The compensation packages of studio CEOs continue to number in the millions, with no signs of slowing. Take Netflix’s co-CEOs: Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos. Despite all the hullabaloo last year about Netflix’s subscriber numbers dipping, their pay in 2023 went up 25% (from $40,000,000) and 32% (from $38,000,000), respectively, to now approximately $50,000,000 each.

We have yet to see any of these CEOs volunteer to take a pay cut, considering their respective companies’ much-lamented, declining profits. No, for Iger and his ilk, they just laid back at the “summer camp for billionaires” in Sun Valley, Idaho, with their mind on their money and their money on their mind.

Meanwhile, the writers they employ struggle to make a living in Los Angeles, where the typical rental ($2,983) is almost on par with San Francisco ($3,168). 

Importantly, there is another reason the AMPTP has yet to claim an “inability to pay.” During the process of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, an employer has a duty to provide certain information to the union, information that can be used to make bargaining proposals and engage in good faith negotiations. When it comes to financial records, however, labor law generally does not require an employer to turn over such information unless the employer claims an “inability to pay” the union’s demands.

So employers who can otherwise afford to pay wage increases respond to unions’ economic demands with explanations short of declaring an “inability to pay.” Instead, they claim the company is “not profitable,” “faces intense economic competition,” or that “the economic challenges in the industry make it hard to survive.” Other times, they tell the workers their expectations are “not realistic.” These are the standard excuses employers use to justify low-ball offers.

Here, the labor dispute the studios have with the writers is about power and control of information as much as it is about control over the writers’ labor. Just like the streamers’ propensity for secrecy over their shows’ ratings, viewership numbers, and the metrics used, the studios that make up the AMPTP are loath to share financial data because it undercuts their leverage and ability to control the narrative during negotiations.

But if the writers’ demands equal the moon, as Iger suggests, then perhaps financial transparency from the studios can help bring their sensibilities back to Earth and temper their demands. 

If the AMPTP truly cannot afford to pay the minimum compensations the Writers Guild is demanding, it should just say so, open up the books, and prove the writers wrong. Instead, we are left with conclusory assertions by millionaires like Iger, with no elaboration, that the workers demand too much of them. It’s nonsense.

Directly addressing the streaming industry, Snoop demanded, “You need to give us some information on how to track these monies down. We do major numbers with streams in this s—, but it don’t add up to the money. Where the f—  is the money?”

The Doggfather is right. 

Streaming has given us so much good entertainment. But it ain’t no fun if the writers can’t have none.   

Jonah J. Lalas is a former union organizer and currently a partner at the labor law firm Rothner, Segall & Greenstone, which represents unions, including the Writers Guild of America, West. He is a PD Soros Fellow and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project.