7. Let’s talk about the WGA strike of 2007 and 2023

Hey all!

We hope this new edition of our #wearedistributed newsletter finds you well wherever you are in the world.

An exciting entry is before you with 5 new Top Global Jobs of the Week, some insights on the Writers Guild Of America East and West that you may have heard about in the news recently, and helpful advice, tools, and insights for distributed workers everywhere.

If you haven’t already, do check out last week’s #6 edition where we went over Twitter’s latest blunder (in a long line of many), a new and interesting survey about the Future of Work and how jobs are said to change, plus 5 more top global jobs in case the ones below don’t quite fit.

Let’s dive right in!

Top Global Jobs of the Week

1/ UX Research Manager - GitLab

2/ Senior Technical SEO Strategist - TestGorilla

3/ Engineering Manager - Mixmax

4/ Lead Technical Recruiter - GOhiring

5/ Customer Success Manager - UScreen

Do you know anyone suited for these positions? Do not hesitate to share this newsletter with them so they can apply. We've got 43 other roles across different departments on our job board!

Know any employers hiring for roles in at least 3 continents? Direct them to our job board to list the role(s) at a discount.

Global Employment Advocate of the Week

Remote work expert, spokesperson of the remote employee experience, and advocate for inclusion and diversity.

These are some phrases we can use to describe our Global Employment Advocate of the Week.

Kaleem Clarkson, the co-founder of RemotelyOne, a community for current remote work professionals, is a strong advocate for global hiring and remote work. He has dedicated his LinkedIn feed to this.

In one of his LinkedIn posts about the future of Remote Work, he shared some hard facts about the drastic changes many companies had to make to transition to remote during the pandemic.

Even post-pandemic, these stats are continuing to rise which proves that working/hiring globally is working. Still, as global employees we need to be sympathetic to employers who are still struggling with understanding and accepting the success of remote/hybrid/global work.

These changes in the employer-employee relationship—that has 100 years of history behind it, mind you—will take a while to be fully accepted, which is one of the reasons why #wearedistributed is spreading the good news of global hiring.

Just as Kaleem Clarkson said:

Workplace Callout

ICYMI: The members of the Writers Guild of America East and West have gone on strike having been unable to come to terms with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP).

The last writers’ strike was in 2007. Here's what happened then. Stay with me, please. 😀

In 2007, the producers argued that writers should not be compensated for the use of their work on the Internet because the Internet was mainly for promotional purposes.

That doesn’t make sense right?

There were many startups trying to figure out how to transition television to the Internet (IPTV) and distribute movies on the web (streaming). One of those startups was Netflix which launched in January 2007.

The Internet was the future so why should writers not be compensated?

After a 100 days strike, the WGA was successful as their new agreement covered the emerging distribution on the Internet and increased rates for all uses.

Now, it is 2023 and while fees are still a significant issue in 2023, these negotiations are about something more basic in union history: working conditions.

sighs

What do the writers want? 👇🏾

• To work for a guaranteed minimum number of weeks per show

• A minimum staffing level for TV writers' rooms.

• Provisions that would require that writers be involved in the production and post-production of shows so that writers get producing experience (important professional development).

These are some of their requests which also include changes in compensation especially as writers deserve to be paid more for hit shows.

In summary, writers claim the studios are turning their profession into an economy of short-term jobs with low pay and even uncompensated work. This is the basis of the strike and why we are calling the studios (AMPTP) out.

For us, (Ada & Jessica), we understand the power and strength of the written word and how much effort it takes as wordsmithing is a way we express ourselves, our art. We advocate that writers should be fairly compensated for the value of their services as they also fight to protect how the services are provided.

This is not the first time we are seeing the big guys (companies & employers) squeezing the little guys (gig workers & employees) for cheap creative labor because they can.

Whether we are in the Guild or not, this is a fight for all people trying to get by. ✊

Green Flags for Job Seekers

We know that job hunting can be hard, especially when it seems that every opportunity eludes you, but we want to remind you that the most important question to ask yourself while applying for jobs is not “Will they hire me?” but “Is this the kind of company I want to work for?” 

With this section, we hope we can make answering that question a little bit easier.

Job descriptions with realistic expectations are a huge green flag to look for when applying. There’s a perfect sweet spot in job descriptions that are in the middle of overly vague to overly descriptive.

You don’t want to be working for a company that doesn’t seem to know what they’re looking for and you don’t want a role that appears to be three combined into one.

Here’s an example from a job listing by Ellipsis for a Senior SEO Strategist, that’s still active on our job board.

The description above breaks down exactly how you’ll spend your time, with client calls, SEO strategy, and writing included in the breakdown. Further down, they’ve included bullet points that describe what skill sets you’ll need, which you can see more in-depth here. 

Look for job descriptions that are clearly defined, where you feel like you know exactly what is to be expected of you should you get the job.

Distributed Company of the Week

Congrats to HelpScout for being our Distributed Company of the Week!

HelpScout provides features such as an email-based customer support platform, a knowledge base tool, and an embeddable search/contact widget for customer service professionals.

They’ve been working with fully distributed teams for a decade now, with roughly 150 employees across 80+ cities around the world. We’ve featured one of their roles on our job board (it’s still active, so go check it out if you’re interested) where they ranked high for a few reasons: they include their pay range on their job listing which is always a plus, they pay higher than the industry average, and they have a short response time during the application process.

They’ve also got a great range of bonuses for employees like personal development funds, a savings plan match, health insurance, and a home office stipend which is probably why they are rated 4.6 on Glassdoor by 29 past and current employees.

Like we mentioned last week, it’s also important to remember that no company is perfect, but we’re excited to highlight the companies we think are doing a great job at promoting good, global company values.

Distributed Tool of the Week

Slack, Jira, Asana, Gmail…it can all get a bit overwhelming for remote workers having to switch between tabs, apps, and even browsers to get what they need to get done.

A recommended app for remote workers we recently stumbled across was Rock, suggested to be a great resource for freelancers and distributed teams.

Using a feature-rich chat to send polls, audio messages, and text messages, freelancers can use Rock as a project management space, knowledge base, client space for creating dedicated projects, and space for admin. 

The set-up lets you work with teas, clients, or individually, making it a great all-around tool for distributed workers who want to get things done with agility and efficiency.

Small-to-large teams can use Rock for $49.00 per month while individuals get access to Rock completely free forever and only have to sign up. The only caveat is limited workspace so if you have smaller projects to focus on, Rock would be a good option.

If you find yourself needing more workspace, there’s the option of upgrading to the limited plan if you’d like.

Global Employment Word of the Week

Ready to learn something new?

The global word of the week is Deep Work - This is the act of diving deep into a workflow in a distraction-free environment. For many who work remotely, deep work is much easier to access because there aren’t as many external office distractions.

And scene! 😀

We hope you enjoyed this week’s version of the best newsletter for global employers and job seekers. We put in some Deep Work (get it? 👆) as we wanted this newsletter entry to be perfect for you.

Hunting for global roles in candidate-centric and people-first companies so you can live a happier life? Visit our global job board.

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Is there anything you would like to see in future newsletters or do you have an idea for our future content series? Let us know in our Community Requests group.

About this newsletter…

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