WGA Urges Netflix & Comcast Shareholders To Reject Pay Hikes For Companies’ Top Executives In Light Of Ongoing Strike

David Robb
·3 min read

WGA West President Meredith Stiehm is urging Netflix and Comcast stockholders to reject pay raises for the companies’ top executives at their upcoming shareholders meetings, saying that approving the proposed pay packages is “inappropriate in light of the ongoing WGA writers’ strike.” The Netflix shareholders meeting will be held on Thursday and Comcast will hold its on June 7.

“While investors have long taken issue with Netflix’s executive pay,” Stiehm wrote in a letter to Netflix shareholders, “the compensation structure is even more egregious against the backdrop of the strike. In the midst of a disruptive labor dispute, Netflix is asking shareholders to give retroactive advisory approval of the company’s 2022 reported executive compensation totaling over $166 million. By contrast, the proposed improvements the WGA currently has on the table would cost Netflix an estimated $68 million per year. I urge you to vote against Proposal 3 and encourage Netflix to put an end to the disruptive strike.”

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In a similar letter sent to Comcast shareholders (read it here), she wrote that “In the midst of the strike’s disruption, Comcast is asking shareholders to give retroactive advisory approval of the company’s 2022 reported executive compensation totaling over $130 million. By contrast, the proposed improvements the WGA currently has on the table would cost Comcast an estimated $34 million per year. I urge you to vote against Proposal 5 and encourage Comcast to put an end to the disruptive strike.”

In her letter to Netflix shareholders (read it here), she said that “Since May 2nd, the writers’ strike and support from other Hollywood unions have disrupted writing and/or production on numerous Netflix series including Stranger Things and Cobra Kai. Netflix’s content pipeline has been blocked, with dozens of projects that were in development or ordered to series as of May 1st unable to move forward until WGA negotiations conclude.

“This disruption of content creation is of particular concern given Netflix’s recent rollout of advertising supported subscription tiers and its crackdown on password sharing in the U.S. and other major markets. A delay in the writing, production, and release of new content may impact Netflix’s ability to attract and retain subscribers and viewers just as the company asks customers to watch advertising and pay more for its content.”

In a similar message to Comcast shareholders, she noted that the strike has “disrupted writing and/or production on numerous NBCUniversal series, including Dick Wolf’s Chicago franchise, Law & Order, and Law & Order: SVU. The strike’s impact on Comcast’s broadcast lineup has a knock-on effect for its streaming business which relies on a steady flow of new broadcast episodes to populate its platform the day after episodes air on TV. In fact, Peacock gets roughly twice as many new scripted, WGA-covered episodes from in-season NBC content as it does from Peacock’s originals slate.”

In both letters she said that Netflix, Comcast and the other companies represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers “refused to negotiate an agreement that fairly compensates the writers who create their films and TV series. In the face of an unprecedented decline in compensation and the erosion of working conditions that have resulted from the business practices of streaming companies, writers are demanding to be paid fairly for the tremendous value they create for profitable media companies” like Netflix and Comcast.

The WGA strike, which is now in its 29th day, began May 2 after negotiations with the AMPTP failed to reach an acceptable deal. The guild’s core issues include significant increases in compensation, minimum staffing, duration of employment, the establishment of viewer-based streaming residuals and curbs on the use of artificial intelligence to create scripts.

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