As the Writers Guild of America’s negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers enter the final week before their contract expires, both sides hope that no strike will be necessary to reach an agreement. But the WGA’s long battle with talent agencies has shown it can do business with even the most stubborn mega-corporations.
Four years ago today, on April 22, 2019, more than 7,000 WGA members fired their agents en masse in a show of solidarity at the start of the Guild’s historic two-year campaign to reform today’s talent agency. to strengthen the guild in the ongoing negotiations with the studios for a new film and television contract.
Five days before the mass layoffs, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Big Three agencies, finding that packaging — where the major talent agencies received fees from production companies for packaging the creative elements of their projects — was illegal under California and state legislation.
Three of the eight named plaintiffs in that case – Meredith Stiehm, Ashley Gable and Derik A. Hughes – are now members of the WKV’s contract negotiating committee, with Stiehm elected president of the WKV six months after the last of the major agencies West . finally agreed to declare packaging costs in February 2021.
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Six months later, in the run-up to the WGA West officer and board elections, Stiehm and fellow executives Betsy Thomas and Michele Mulroney — who also serve on the 2023 negotiating committee — cited the solidarity membership as showing they saw the agency as a unifying power fight. , which would bear fruit in the ongoing contract negotiations for a new minimum basic agreement.
In her official campaign statement, Stiehm wrote of the Presidium’s conclusion of the battle: “We won this victory while everyone was watching. We now have tremendous momentum as we approach the MBA in 2023. Companies should be aware that we will bring the same strength and determination to our negotiations with them.”
Thomas, who co-chaired the 2020 treaty negotiating committee and a member of the agency’s negotiating committee, said in her campaign statement for Secretary-Treasurer 2021 that the WGA 2020 treaty talks — which are in the early days of the end of the pandemic — and the guild’s victory over the big talent agencies “gave our union a well-deserved reputation for being smart, tenacious and, frankly, badass. We should be taken seriously and feared – and as we enter 2023, we should be too.” “
Mulroney, who co-chaired the 2020 contract negotiating committee and also served on the agency’s negotiating committee, wrote in her campaign statement that she will apply that experience “to contribute to a successful 2023 MBA campaign.”
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“I sat in the front row of the negotiations and saw firsthand the tactics the AMPTP uses,” she wrote of the 2020 negotiations. Of the ongoing treaty negotiations, she wrote: “We know what we’re dealing with: mega-mergers, the convergence of theater and SVOD, dwindling backends, shorter seasons, the rise of the TV mini-room, an attack on TV production fees and the never-ending epidemic of freelancing.
These are all important issues that the Guild has brought to the negotiating table in the ongoing negotiations with the AMPTP.
Gable, who served as strike leader during the guild’s 100-day strike in 2007-2008, wrote in her campaign for re-election to the guild board last year: “The agency’s campaign demonstrated the tremendous power of the collective power of writers. I believe power was the key to giving us the impact we had in the 2020 MBA negotiations.”
Noting that when she first ran for council in 2018, Gable wrote that “two major concerns were the then-upcoming agency campaign and the 2020 MBA negotiations. I beat my ass about the agency’s campaign and I’m proud of our victory. But the MBA negotiations that would become so important were ultimately stalled by the pandemic and our subsequent inability to issue a credible threat of a strike. While what we were able to get from the companies was significant given the circumstances (paid parental leave!), it appears our key issues will remain unresolved before next year’s negotiations.”
Two other members of the current Negotiating Committee, Hughes and Eric Haywood, also emphasized the importance of the agency’s campaign in light of the ongoing contract negotiations when they ran for re-election to the WGA West Board of Directors last year.
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“With the MBA negotiations coming up,” Haywood writes in his campaign statement, “we can’t afford to hope that the multimillion-dollar corporations that produce and distribute television shows and movies will suddenly come to their senses and realize that they. .. ‘enough’ money in their bank accounts and share the wealth with a pure heart with writers. On the contrary, we should expect absolutely no profit for which we are not prepared to fight tooth and nail. Hopefully this will not lead to a strike required, but if the success of the agency’s campaign has taught us anything, it is that there is nothing we cannot achieve with a united membership that allows leaders to show no fear at the negotiating table.”
And Hughes wrote in his campaign statement: “We launched an agency campaign and won, we negotiated an MBA in the midst of a pandemic that brought significant profits to writers. But although the 2020 MBA negotiations as a considered success in very difficult times, there were some key issues that were taken off the table or left unaddressed until the 2023 negotiations.
The firing of their agents four years ago showed that writers were willing to make sacrifices for what they saw as the common good. Last week, nearly 98% voted in favor of striking, indicating they are prepared to do so again as contract negotiations now enter the final days before the current WGA contract expires on May 1.
The agency’s campaign also pointed to the guild’s willingness to compromise. After the last agency (WME) adjusted, the agencies had more than a year to complete their series of WGA projects. And the guild even compromised its requirement that franchisees stop owning manufacturing units, allowing franchisees and their owners to own up to a 20% stake in any manufacturing or distribution unit.
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While the Guild’s two-year battle with the major agencies over packaging and ownership of production companies received the most press coverage, another important part of the deal was the “information exchange” whereby the agencies were asked to provide the Guild with invoices, business notices send , Contracts and schedules of agent fees and commissions.
“The sharing of information is one of the three pillars of our agency campaign,” the guild said in a summary of the successes it had with the agencies. “The sharing of information is essential to advance the interests of authors, both individually and collectively. The information provided by the agency will enable the Guild to identify and evaluate unparalleled industry trends in author services, which will assist the Guild in negotiating the MBA and provide authors and their representatives with important remittance information.
The WGA negotiates minimum wages for writers known as “scale,” but agents negotiate scale for their clients, and the information the agencies have now shared helps the guild argue at the negotiating table with studios that work in each . More writers now work with an MBA minimum than a decade ago.
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“In the 2013-2014 season, 33% of all TV series writers earned minimum wage; now at least half are working,” Charles Slocum, co-general manager at WGA West, recently told Deadline. “Increasingly experienced writers, including showrunners, are now not being paid an exorbitant reward for their years of experience. The average weekly salary for a writer and producer has fallen by 4% in the past decade. Adjusted for inflation, the decrease is 23%.”
Source: Deadline
Bernice Bonaparte is an author and entertainment journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a passion for pop culture and a talent for staying up-to-date on the latest entertainment news, Bernice has become a trusted source for information on the entertainment industry.
