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Assistants all over Hollywood work so hard for so little pay. (Which is why there’ve been so many California government crackdowns on what is tantamount to showbiz slave labor.) Ergo, it’s hard to imagine any company trying to get away with paying them less. But tipsters tell me that’s what WME is doing. The new agency is “recalculating” the pay for previous WMA assistants (about $13.50 an hour) to be more on a par with former Endeavor assistants (about $9.50 an hour). As one WMA assistant complained to me, “It’s depressing to think that my already abysmal pay might go down. That would honestly make the wages unliveable. And infinitely more disgusting knowing the millions of dollars certain agents are making.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Sad that the assistants do more work than some of the agents. There’s one TV lit agent from Endeavor in particular who just likes to brag to people that she is an agent at Endeavor but she doesn’t actually do her job. She’s so emotionally unstable that if you ask her to do any work for you she’ll lose her mind and yell at you for telling her how to do her job! She can’t actually do anything for the clients, nor does she know what the clients are up to and if they’re even working!
So maybe WME should survey their clients on which agents they should let go as I’m sure the clients could in 2 minutes compile a list because they know the people who are doing the work for them and not just kissing ass of the higher ups in the break room.
I like that comment about Ari – a big cuddly liberal with his brother’s boss and then he screws his own company hires worse than AIG. U are simply a liar Ari – but hey, U look at that as a virtue. One day U will answer for what U’ve done… In the meantime, assistants, suck it up! This town is full of shitheads – I know, I worked for some of the biggest, and I’m still around.
re Comment by Former Assistant — June 18, 2009 @ 7:45 am
Yes, I too was an assistant about that time and they are making less and working more. I shared an apt in the Hills with a friend and we paid about $400 each per month. Try that now and see what you get. Nada. Plus a car, insurance? You’re fucked.
Agree with other commenter to get in, make connections and get out. However, it’s far more difficult these days because all the development jobs at studios or production companies with housekeeping deals have all but disappeared. Seriously, where do assistants go now? There is no more industry.
Kiddies, a bit of advice from a wise former assistant. Get the fuck out. Get into an industry that is growing, rather than shrinking. Get some course work or experience in anything involving new media, emerging tech or gaming. The agency world will continue to shrink as the talent pool will continue to get smaller as agencies don’t want to invest in growing talent. Plus, you’ll be a fuck of a lot happier.
Or, don’t take my advice and be a slave, get an ulcer, get fucked over, sell your soul and your clients, get an STD and die young and poor.
If you don’t like then leave the industry. Babies. Seriously suck it up or go home!
Typical Hollywood leftist Democrats, they love voting for Socialists and sympathize with Communists, then they treat their staff like farm animals and slaves. The hypocrisy is laughable. They are the true greedy slime.
Assistants on Film/TV Productions make way less than that and have far worse hours. Since most of them don’t get paid overtime they end up working for less than minimum wage as well as less than the PA’s. It’s unfair but it’s been that way for a while now, nothing new here. Every year the pay seems to go down.
wow, Boohoo, just coz you were a slave doesn’t mean others need to be. Fact is, its against the law. Period. Assistants are not slaves for you to lord over, what hypocrites agents are. slavery went out of style centuries ago. It’s time for assistants to unionize!
I like BriteBlonde1′s “idea” on how to fix things, regrettably it has no basis in reality. Why?
Actors, (and writers and directors for that matter)no matter how big or small on the food chain ever bite the hand that feeds them.
A lot of actors (although not the brightest) have a survivor’s sense of which side to route for, and trust me they will choose to stay silent for their own selfish reasons rather than support an assistant 100 out of 100 times.
True story: used to make $15 and (then more) in high school working at a Whole Foods.
Even still, it makes a lot of sense to accept the slave wages and work this close to Hollywood central nexus of packaging power.
It’s like grad school, except tuition is free and living expenses are (almosted) covered.
Anyone who actively wants to be an agent deserves to suffer for as long as possible.
In the old days, there were two tracks: agent trainees, who made $300/wk gross, no benefits, and professional assistants, who started at $450/wk and got benefits and regular raises.
I spent a year at a major agency. Six months in the mailroom, six months on a desk. I have since worked at 2 broadcast networks and a major tv studio. Compared to working in tv, being at the agency was like working at the Special Olympics every day. For all the BS about working thirteen hours a day, most of the agents sit around playing video games, planning extravagant vacations, yelling at their assistants, and trying to figure out where to have lunch. If you’re a writer, you can be about 98% sure that your lit agent has never read a single word you’ve ever written, and instead relies on the opinion of a $300/wk recent college grad.
About a decade ago, when I was a senior programming exec at FBC, I stopped talking to agents. For the following ten years, I spoke to agents maybe once a week, and they were usually talent agents and it was usually some BS actor-prima-donna issue (“My client forgot that she has to fly to London to present an award.” “OK, I’ll talk to the producers about jiggling the schedule around. When is this?” “Tomorrow.”) I got my pitches and specs from managers and producers; I filled open-writing assignments by calling my favorite writers at home.
In my humble opinion, and in my own experience (which may be unique, and, let’s face it, I’m never going to be president of a network), agents are completely superfluous and should be avoided wherever possible.
I agree 100% w/ Abe LastFogey. Boo hoo is a D bag and probably had daddy paying rent while he was an assistant.
Most assts I know are barely scraping by since LA has such a high cost of living. It’s not a matter of paying your dues when you have to go into debt to pay for groceries. Most assts already “pay their dues” by working around the clock and get treated like shit.
I think the old hollywood Dbags have instilled a horrible system and it keeps getting worse even the cost of living keeps increasing. It starts with the agencies, then production co’s think they should be able to get away with paying assts what the kids in the agency mailrooms start with. so gross.
Dear assistants,
I feel for your plight. I know many of you. Complaining will not do anything, action does.
I barely could live off an assistant wage, but I was smart enough to realize I could sell talent grids to survive at as much as $200 to rival agencies and management companies – and occasionally brokering deals for rolodexes that I stole while as a floater. (So understand, if you’re as morally bankrupt as your bosses, you too can eek out a living wage)
But I digress….
The only thing Ari and senior management respond to is leverage. As assistants, you have plenty.
1) Ari, let this be a warning, your home phone number is going to be posted EVERYWHERE. Why? Because I’m asking every assistant who dislikes this move by management to do so. Go ahead and change your course of action, or you’ll have to change your phone number every two weeks if you want to get any sleep at night and function as an executive.
2) Letter writing campaign. I promise any one of you assistants that ICM or CAA will foot the bill for postage if you all get together and create a letter to this effect sent to every WME major client (on WME letterhead):
Dear Denzel Washington,
This week WME announced plans to cut assistant salaries 30% causing us to fall further below a livable wage. Many of us are already struggling to make ends meet and with this large wage reduction, many of us will have to leave the business of working tirelessly on behalf of clients.
Please call Ari Emanuel at (XXX) XXX-XXXX and ask that during this time of much suffering in the economy, that he maintain assistant wages at a livable level.
Sincerely,
WME Assistants
(You’re all more accomplished letter writers than I am, but you get the basic idea… Hit em where it hurts, the clients)
3) Unionize / Walk out. Not sure if you all have the balls and tenacity to do it, but Unionize. Call up one of the guilds to help you. If you’re lucky, you can make it a closed shop and start getting paid better than supermarket baggers! And watch Ari try to explain to big brother Rahm at the White House that he is fighting against a Union. The right Union organizer would have a filed day with this one.
Point being, you have more power over this than you might think. I hope you’ll stand up to being pushed around by your millionaire corporate oppressors, aka Ari.
-R
PS: Dear Ari… This is morally repugnant to do to your corps of assistants – though the verdict already seem to come in that you have no morals.
Considering the average assistant works barely a year before leaving, you couldn’t wait for attrition and just have the $9.50 apply to new hires? Besides, its not like you haven’t crushed morale to the point that a slew of WMA assistants want to move on as soon as their year is up.
The assistants who work there know what they are getting into. They could get a less “glamorous” job that pays well where they were treated decently but they choose not to because they are chasing their own version of money, greed and fame. Now they want to work at the most egotistical agency in town. And now that agency says–we will pay you even less! And now these assistants still want to work there. If they asked the assistants to pay them for the privilege of working there–there would probably be takers.
Writer’s assistants, director’s assistants – same pay, same hours, far worse implications, being that their employers are all members of the industry’s labor unions. Shouldn’t they treat “the workers” better than they do?
Seriously, Nikki, as long as comments are monitored, it’s really repulsive that you’d post an anti-Semitic comment.
What I remember most fondly about working at an agency was the humiliation. And memories like that are something you simply can’t put a price tag on.
Sadly pathetic. I hope everyone, including the people over 40 are contacting the EEOC for inhumane treatment and instating a suit against the company. Most of the assistants are doing the job of their lazy bosses who are too busy chatting on the phone with friends or out getting mani/pedis, haircuts (not Gaby) or schmoozing at the grill.
Jim Wiatt has managed to mangled and crush a company over 100 years old and Ari will just step over the bodies left behind.
Shame on all of you for the demise of WMA as an institution. I hope all of these assistants creep into your dreams at night and haunt you from today forward.
I hope to see your karma come back around as your black hearts will explode.
complain all you want, but there are thousands that would take your job working at a top 4 agency. yes, you make shit in the mail room, but if you last you’ll get a raise after 12 months … and get another bump after another year … and then another. when you’re an assistant to a partner or dept head the rules don’t apply to you … you can negotiate another bump … you get overtime. assistants who have managed to last and figure it out are making more than baby agents and creative execs. those are the ones who aren’t bitching and those are the ones that are going to get promoted b/c they’ve figured it out. keep your heads down and work your asses off (and eat leftovers from meetings to save money).
Jill Smoller. How if the F did she ever make it. She’s Dave’s office wife and Serena’s baby sitter. Too bad she lost Michelle Wie – she got to travel on her dime too. Take a look at what dollars she generates on an annual basis. The income wouldn’t even pay an assistant for one week. Dump her and you’d be able to give every assistant a salary which would at least coverthe cost of living.
@Abe LastFogey I’ve got to stand up for Boo Hoo.
“you wear an Armani suit, love America Psycho, and wear paste/mold/sculpt in your hair.” He might not, but I do. Love AMERICAN PSYCHO. Wouldn’t be caught dead in Ed Hardy tho… the two looks are mutually exclusive.
And what does that have to do with anything? Assuming he’s not full of shit, he’s proof that there the agency=grad school system works.
Oh, and for the record, if the Bateman thing wasn’t cool, Fox wouldn’t be doing MONEY NEVER SLEEPS.
I would love to run into BooHoo in a dark alley.
Abe LastFogey, I couldnt agree more. It’s really sad that this is happening…how can you not agree. But instead we get douchetalk from BooHoo, who obviously suffers from penis envy.
Just what is the percentage of assistants who actually go on to better jobs within the same agency? What’s the actual promotion rate at the majors? Assistants, do the math before you buy the bullshit. What is it that you actually LOVE about the business that cannot be found in another business? The talent? The product? Be real. I toiled in entertainment for 10 years and you know what? It’s just a business filled with lousy bosses, shitty content and crappy pay. It’s a lousy job market but try to find another industry that can use your talents and appreciate you with benefits, retirement, flex spend and…hold the phone…A FUTURE! Get out before you get too old, too bitter and your translatable skills are no longer translatable. I left entertainment, had to take a step back to gain experience in another business (albeit entertainment oriented). Couldn’t be happier not being yelled at by people who should be in mental institutions, have miserable track records and worse profit margins. And the pay is better. Stop acting like the abused wife and open your eyes. It’s not going to get any better. You’re never going to get a union…cripes, JUST what this town needs…Seriously, I WAS you. I know what I’m talking about.
Still better than the 9.2862 Marvel is shafting their employees with, and only 30cents /mi.
If you don’t like it then quit. A busload of new kids willing to do your job for free shows up in Hollywood every hour.
Seriously, if you don’t like it… go home. Half of you are being supported by mommie and daddie anyway.
Try living the life in my heels…. graduated college a few years ago, worked production in NY for 3 years, moved to LA (had to start all over getting my foot in the door)to work in the industry out here and I’m still struggling money wise, but career wise. I work my ass off everyday. I’ll come in at 7 am if need be for my boss, and usually I do… I’ll take the pay cut until I get somewhere… and you know why?? because I want it. I’m in the industry I want to be in…
So either take what your given and make something out of nothing or get the fuck out.