The sorry state of streaming residuals shows why SAG and the WGA are striking.
Sure, industries like retail, tourism, and food service have similar weaknesses, but those industries are unskilled.
I understand what you are trying to say, but no they really aren’t. They require a very different skill set than being an engineer or a doctor, but I guarantee that you do not have the skills that I do with knives, playing with fire, and making knives. I know this because an engineer doesn’t have the time to spend 20 years working as a cook/chef, and 2 as an apprentice blacksmith. That being said, I’m useless if you hand me math above pre-calculus. I can remember algebra and pre-calc, but I don’t remember calculus any more.
There’s no job that is “easy.” In all actuality the lower the pay, the harder the job is to do. There are very few exceptions to this rule.
I took hard jobs because I’m a pyromaniac and so I made that work for me. Cooking and blacksmithing are just playing with fire.
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.
