2.2.1. "Sweeping changes" in "the publishing industry"? You mean "industries," right? (Natl Writers Union)
Description
This article is from the Natl Writers Union FAQ, by Vicki Richman nwufaq@vicric.com with numerous contributions by others.
2.2.1. "Sweeping changes" in "the publishing industry"? You mean "industries," right? (Natl Writers Union)
Since Guttenberg, publishing has come in many guises. That
is even more true now, with CD-ROM, the Web and interactive
software, like games and teaching tools.
Artists are driven not to the genres that pay the best, but
to the genres we have spent years learning and mastering.
However, typical publishers -- Disney, Murdoch, Time-Warner
-- continually expand into new enterprises, looking to
expand their profit and impose their own idea of standard
practices on us. Almost all major newspapers now have their
own Web sites. Therefore, we don't believe we can reform
labor practices in one publishing genre without seeking
changes in all publishing.
Since our inception, however, our activists have recognized
broad publishing categories. We have mounted specific
campaigns directed at specific genres. The deepest
historical rift in publishing is between books and
periodicals. So we organized our Book and Jouralism
Campaigns. Activists worked in the field more familiar to
them, while coordinating their efforts with activists in the
other field.
For example, the Book Campaign aimed at getting accurate and
intelligible royalty statements from publishers. The
Journalism Campaign sought full payment, instead of a kill
fee, for work frivolously rejected by editors.
In the early 90s, we added the New Technologies Campaign, to
protect writers against database rip-offs and censorship. At
the same time, many of our silent members -- corporate
speechwriters, catalog writers, advertising copywriters,
writers under contract to produce text books and technical
manuals -- started to file grievances. They had typically
been ignored in favor of their more glamorous sisters and
brothers -- poets, novelists, journalists.
These commercial contract writers went on to organize the
Business, Instructional, Technical Writing Campaign
(BIT). That made four campaigns, including New
Technologies. But few of our members actually wrote code or
designed Web sites, while most of our BIT writers were
working to enrich their repertoire with electronic work. So
we folded New Technologies into BIT, to form the Business,
Instructional, Technical, Electronic Writing Campaign
(BITE).
Although we have three campaigns -- Book, Journalism, BITE
-- we see the publishing industry as one, and ourselves,
however different our genres, as co-workers with a common
cause. The separate campaigns allow activists to focus on
specific targets, while unity amplifies our diverse efforts
into one movement aimed at reform of all publishing.
Contrary to previous versions of this FAQ, the vote by the
1998 Delegates Assembly did not actually exclude "computer
programmers" from membership in the National Writers Union,
unless they meet some other membership criterion.
Presumambly, "computer programmers" means code writers and
perhaps Web designers. The vote was simply a decision not to
actively seek to organize them.
The motion was sponsored by the former and present chairs of
the New York local, who preferred that organizing funds be
spent only on authors and writers in human languages.
The maintainer of this FAQ urges solidarity among quill
scratchers, fountain-pen squirters, code writers, Web
designers, and everyone in between.
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