LAIST: Latest On WGA Strike: Putting Executive Compensation Under The Spotlight

The Writers Guild of America strike is now a month old, and the guild is changing tactics. Rather than just picketing at studio gates, the WGA is now going after the people who run those studios, and their hefty pay packages.

WGA President Meredith Stiehm has written to shareholders of Netflix and Comcast, the parent of NBC Universal, asking them to vote against approving compensation for its leaders at their upcoming shareholder meetings. The top executives at Comcast made $130 million last year, while the top Netflix executives pocketed $166 million, the WGA says.

“Shareholders should send a message to Netflix that if the company could afford to spend $166 million on executive compensation last year, it can afford to pay the estimated $68 million per year that writers are asking for in contract improvements and put an end to the disruptive strike,” Stiehm wrote in the Netflix letter.

She estimated the annual contract costs for Comcast under the WGA’s proposed deal is about $34 million.

“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 Comcast,” Stiehm wrote in the Comcast letter.