What the WGA deal with Hollywood studios means to writers with disabilities
From left: Zayre Ferrer, Monica Cecilia Lucas and Gisselle Legere. Photos: Courtesy of Zayre Ferrer, A Klass, Bob Lasky.
By Astrid Galván
Hollywood writers with disabilities say the deal to end the 148-day writers' strike could help address specific issues that impact them the most.
The big picture: Roughly 20% of Americans live with a disability, yet less than 1% of Hollywood writers are disabled, according to the Inevitable Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates and provides fellowships for writers with disabilities.
What they're saying: The WGA's victory in setting a minimum number of writers who must be staffed on shows "felt like the biggest win," says Gisselle Legere, a Cuban American writer who most recently worked on NBC's "New Amsterdam."
"Almost 99% of disabled creatives in Hollywood are still at a lower level, and that means your chances of staffing are so, so tiny and getting tinier with the (writing) rooms getting smaller," says Legere, who lost most of her hearing as a child.
"So the fact that the WGA was able to mandate minimum room size was a win for everybody."
Legere also lauded increased health benefits for some writers.
"If you're disabled, health insurance becomes such a driving factor in your ability to survive in a place like LA."
For Zayre Ferrer, a Panama-born and Brooklyn-raised writer, getting an increase in residual payments from streaming services was key.
Ferrer, who has very limited mobility and is immunocompromised because of their severe myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, says writers can go months or even years between jobs.
"You end up really depending on your residuals, and when it's streaming, the amount isn't reliable and it isn't what it is for networks, even though the work is the same."
Ferrer, who most recently wrapped up a writing job on "Our Flag Means Death," the HBO Max series, says they were "low key thankful" for the reprieve the strike offered as they struggle to find more writing gigs that can be done over Zoom instead of in-person.
"As soon as people felt like the pandemic was over, which is not over for people like me, they were like, 'I just really want to be face-to-face,' and the Zoom rooms started to kind of disappear. It was a big ableist wave," Ferrer says.
Monica Cecilia Lucas, a writer who is not in the WGA, says she was glad to see the guild win a "guaranteed second step," or a requirement that studios pay screenwriters to perform a rewrite of a script instead of handing off the first draft to a more experienced and better-paid writer.
"I wish people knew how much effort goes into the creative process that we are actually not getting paid for," says Lucas, who is on the autism spectrum.
"I'm writing a pilot right now that I hope to be able to use as a sample in the future, and I've spent literally nine months writing this pilot and I'm not getting paid for it. Maybe one day I will — maybe one day it'll get me a job or somebody might buy it."
