There’s no reason to believe that the current crop of content startups will be more willing to share profits with the people who make it all possible than the studios and networks of yesteryear. Actors, journalists, film crews, and writers working in movies and television weren’t just handed salaries and benefits that currently dwarf those enjoyed by the average independent web video producer because of corporate benevolence or scrappy self-reliance — they negotiated for those gains as groups.

As the vlogosphere becomes more professionalized and existing guilds and unions begin to address contract provisions related to web and mobile distribution, progressives have raised issues around collective action, such as bargaining contracts and buying insurance, that harken back to the days when, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan was the chief negotiator during the SAG strike of 1960.

Over the weekend, a panel discussion at YearlyKos on unionizing bloggers was covered in a feature by AP writer Ashley M. Heher, sparking plenty of discussion across the blogosphere. While primarily focused on writers, many of the same questions are relevant to the growing number of people working in online video distribution — maybe more important, since video production is by nature a collaborative activity.

Skeptical that so many diverse blogger cats could be herded, Curt Hopkins of the Committee to Protect Bloggers is quoted in the AP piece:

There’s absolutely no commonality there. How will they find a commonality to go on? I think it’s doomed to failure on any sort of large scale.

But because toiling away on a film set is much more like working in the industrial hothouse that bred labor movements of old, the kind of creator community bonding necessary to foment collective action amongst vloggers could catalyze where mobilizing writers might fail.

Of course, there are plenty of existing unions that would be happy to have new members, such as the National Writers Union, which was represented on the panel, and the Freelancers Union, which generally covers people working in technology and media. Both are primarily advocacy efforts, but members in certain states can also apply for group health plans. Personally, I just paid dues to the Wobblies, but then I’m a sentimental old lefty with anarcho-syndicalist leanings.

More focused efforts to organize such as ourtu.be, which evolved out of discussions in the videoblogging group on Yahoo, have been abortive at best. Online campaigns from traditional unions such as the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild have focused on renegotiating existing contracts to include better terms for members doing work online, but there’s been little to no effort spent at increasing their membership by opening their doors to non-members working exclusively online, and as Hollywood stockpiles content with negotiations stalled and a stoppage looming, union members are leaving the fold to become management online.

The entrepreneurial aspect of being an independent content creator would seem to be at an opposite ideological pole from traditional labor union organization. Most distribution networks as well as individual shows pay for work on a contract basis, which means that people working on the productions don’t qualify as traditional employees under labor law but as self-employed independent contractors. And everyone seems to be nursing their own business plan just waiting for a little capital investment.

But that speaks to an individual’s effort address the disparity in what a company sells its product for and what the company pays for the work that goes into it, just as any union would do for its members. It’s no secret that the hype surrounding online video is fueled in part by the fact that business people see an opportunity to get more content for less money, and hence make even bigger margins than traditional media businesses. But as long as there is non-union competition willing to scab, TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley points out, content buyers will always be able to set the terms.