The sorry state of streaming residuals shows why SAG and the WGA are striking.

  • cbarrick@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Smithing is definitely skilled labor. It’s the classic example of an artisan.

    But work in most of the food service industry (front and back) is unskilled. And by “most” I mean things like fast food, cafeterias, diners, chain restaurants etc. In all of these cases, you can hire Joe Shmoe off the street to wait tables.

    Fine dining is a special case. Obviously you need significant skill/training to be the chef at a Michelin star restaurant, for example.

    And I’m not saying that unskilled labor is easy. It’s not. I spent a decade in food service as an unskilled laborer (mostly fast food and cafeterias). It’s exhausting and difficult. And I’m not saying that unskilled labor is undeserving of a living wage. What I am saying is that the labor pool for unskilled work is much much larger, so it’s near impossible for that kind of worker to demand residuals or equity in the same way as an engineer or screen writer.