by Larry Brody
Where we are now, via the WGA Negotiating Committee last Friday:
Fellow Members,
Last Saturday, at the agencies’ request, the Guild gave them six days beyond AMBA expiration to provide us with a fair offer. They have not done so. Among other unacceptable proposals, the agencies insist on continuing their major conflicts of interest. They insist on continuing to produce and be our employers. Their “offer” on packaging is to share 1% of their packaging fee with writers. Here is the response David Goodman presented this afternoon at the bargaining table to the proposal the ATA made yesterday.
So there is no settlement. The membership voted by 95.3% to implement an Agency Code of Conduct if a negotiated settlement was not reached, and elected leadership set today as the deadline. As of midnight tonight, every agency will be required to become a signatory to the Code. And under WGA Working Rule 23, WGA Current members cannot be represented by agencies that have not signed the Code.
So what happens now? In a strike situation, we all know that we are to refrain from crossing the picket line or writing for a struck company, and we’re asked to show our solidarity by picketing, which is the public and moral face of our dispute.
In this situation there are two actions required of all members: First, do not allow a non-franchised agent to represent you with respect to any future WGA-covered work. Second, notify your agency in a written form letter that they cannot represent you until they sign the Code of Conduct.
Linked here is the form letter, in plain and respectful language, which accomplishes this task. Members who are represented by agencies not signed to the Code of Conduct must e-sign the letter. This letter also protects you legally in case of any future commission dispute. The Guild will forward all letters en masse to the appropriate agencies in a few days. Many of you will also want to inform your agents personally. We encourage you to do so and to ask them to sign the Code.
We know you may have questions about exactly how to deal with your agent. We have linked here to a set of rules of implementation and FAQs that clarify how to deal with agencies that are no longer franchised. It is important that you read both the rules and the FAQ carefully. If you have additional questions about your situation, you should contact the Guild at: agency@wga.org.
We know that, together, we are about to enter uncharted waters. Life that deviates from the current system might be various degrees of disorienting. But it has become clear that a big change is necessary.
We will not only stand together, we will stand up for each other, lean on each other. We can do this.
In Solidarity,
WGA-Agency Agreement Negotiating Committee
And from David A. Goodman, President of the Writers Guild of America West, on the same day:
I just wanted to respond to your proposals, because I feel it’s necessary that we be honest about where we are. We granted the one week extension with the sincere hope that we could reach a solution, and there have been a few moments of hope. On the subject of independent features, we appreciate the constructive dialogue we have had. I know it’s the feeling of the feature writers on our committee that the conversations and negotiations have been productive, and that we are close to finding an agreement on that issue that will both protect writers and allow agencies to be properly compensated for the important work they do in this area.
Unfortunately, it is the feeling of this committee that this is the only area where we we’ve made progress. Your proposals on information sharing are entirely inadequate. You continue to refuse to recognize the primacy of the Guild and our legal right to the information as exclusive bargaining representative for writers. Any consultation with an attorney experienced in labor law would confirm you are legally protected in this area, and some of you know it from your own experience with the sports unions. CAA is required to turn over the contracts to the NFLPA within 48 hours. The overwhelming majority of our members want their deal memos, contracts and invoices to go directly to the Guild, and any member that doesn’t will have avenues of recourse directly with the Guild.
Your presentation on packaging was a little confusing, not because we don’t understand it, but because you claimed that we didn’t, and then made a presentation that was very close to the speech I gave to our members. Our overall description of the mechanisms of packaging fees was exactly the same. Though we appreciate that you were listening to Mike Schur’s discussion of how important mid and low level writers are to us, your proposal of .8% of your backend of new series in no way realigns your incentives with these writers. You are still receiving money from our employers for access to us, and keeping 99% of the profits of your backend. It does not change your incentives at all. It is not a serious proposal and we reject it.
On your diversity fund proposal, the fact is, it shouldn’t rely on this negotiation. The moral obligation that our industry provide access and opportunity to underrepresented artists of our community is an obligation that we have only begun to address. While we applaud your willingness to confront issues of diversity and inclusion, it shouldn’t be used as a bargaining chip. You should know the comment of the diverse members of this committee upon hearing your proposal, was “We’re not pawns.” We also reject that proposal. And if you really feel that the program you proposed would make a difference, you are free to spend the money you pledged outside of this negotiation.
You have chosen to make no proposal on your affiliates, except to take a “wait and see” approach, which you did not present to us in this room, and so many of us only found out about when we read it in the trades. Even if you had presented it to us, it would still be unacceptable. Despite your protestations to the contrary, these production companies are not independent of your agencies, your private equity investors openly talk about how your leveraging representation of clients to create a production business is why they invested. While we acknowledge that you have made favorable talent deals, they are clearly a loss-leader strategy. We do not need to “wait and see” to know they will disappear when the business settles in. We reject this proposal.
As I said, we granted the week’s extension as a sincere effort to try to find a solution. But it is clear to us that we are not appreciably closer. We are willing to continue meeting with you when you provide a proposal that truly addresses our expressed concerns, but our Friday deadline has arrived and we are moving forward with the implementation of our Code of Conduct and the enforcement of our WGA Working Rule 23. Thank you.
For those who’ve been asking me for more info about what’s happening, the Industry trades have some excellent articles:
WGA to Members: ‘There Is No Deal,’ Fire Your Agents
ATA Offers To Share Packaging Fees With Writers
To those who’ve been asking for my personal opinion on whether or not the current WGA strategy will work, let me say that I’ve been thinking long and hard about not only the issues but the practical political outcome of where we are right now (i.e., firing our agents), and although I’m not nearly so eloquent as David A. Goodman, where I am boils down to this:
For what it’s worth, my experience has been that in any gathering of writers I’ve been at, the majority is made up of writers who either feel horribly let down by their agents or are upset about agents in general because they haven’t been able to obtain representation.
The specific current issues aside, so many writers feel trapped by agency agreements they wish they could escape or resentful at the agencies that rejected them as clients, that I’m confident that the vast majority of the Guild’s voting members will do what it takes to say, “Buh-bye” to their agents or just plain, “Fuck you” to the agencies as a whole.
After which they’ll fall into a huge funk, second-guessing what they’ve done and living in a state of neurotic terror about potential consequences.
I say the above with no small about of certainty because, well, because I’ve been a member of this Guild for 50, yep, 50 years, and that’s what we always do.
This could be a very long and bitter battle unless the ATA wises up and, having been reminded that ethics exist, starts being guided by them.
Yours in solidarity!
