WGA members, please check out the WGA's most recent email about the MBA negotiations. The committee is taking positions on span protection, mini rooms, options, teams and script parity, which I support. But the last point is especially important: paying staff writers for scripts.

Here it is: "STAFF WRITERS: A script is not worth zero because a staff writer writes it, rather than a story editor or a writer-producer. Yet, if a staff writer writes a script, they are paid nothing beyond the weekly Article 13 rate. This is an arbitrary relic of the past."

"Staff writers contribute both their time and their writing to the success of a show. They should be paid for both. We propose that script fees must be paid for every script, to staff writers, just like any other writer."

"And we propose that staff writers get on-screen credit, like all other writers on the series and, for that matter, everyone else who works on the show."

It is already incredibly hard for those from lower income backgrounds to break into Hollywood. Not paying staff writers for scripts they actually write makes it even more difficult for lower income writers to continue working and move up the ladder.

Script fees for many 1 hour drama shows are close to $40,000. That money would make a tremendous difference to staff writers struggling to survive in los angeles (especially when so many of them have spent years working for peanuts as assistants while waiting to break in).

Remember that some staff writers will get 20 weeks on a show, then be let go. It could be 10 months plus until the next season, if there is one and they're brought back. So it's not just about money while on the show, it's about having the means to survive until the next gig too.

Those with financial means can wait for that next gig to come, even if it takes a year or two (and sometimes it does). Those without have to be extremely lucky just to stay in the game until their next shot.

It's also why we see diversity decrease at nearly every level year-by-year in the writers room. Remember this graphic from the WGA last year?

POC writers decrease from 45% to 38% after their first year, while white writers increase from 55% to 62%. (And POC writers steadily decrease at nearly every level, until they make us just 12% of EP's and Showrunners.)

One way to increase diversity, especially at the staff writer / story editor level, is to simply pay all writers for the work they do. Period. If you hired them to be on your staff, you saw something in their writing that made you believe in them. Support their growth.