Writers Guild agreement reached
Suddenly, the five-month pause in negotiations between the Writers Guild and the studios has ended, with a tentative agreement announced today.
For those who haven’t been following the situation, film and television writers have been working without a contract since June 2nd. The Writers Guild walked away from the studios “last, best offer” because it didn’t address the principal concerns:
- Health plan funding
- DVD residuals
- Late payments
- Other creative issues, such as reality television writing
The idea was to wait until the Directors Guild started their negotiations, and piggyback on any advances they were able to make. (This isn’t as unfair as it sounds; the DGA traditionally goes last in the cycle after WGA and SAG, and benefits from increases the first two guilds win.) However, the DGA made their deal really quickly, and didn’t make any progress on DVD residuals. So there wasn’t a lot for the WGA Negotiating Committee to build on.
What did the writers get in this tentative agreement? Well, the health plan is the biggest thing, with about $37 million more pumped in to keep the fund solvent. There are also increases in pension and minimum writing fees. DVD residuals stay where they are, but there’s at least some token attention to late payments and reality television, which uses writers but calls them producers.
Also on the television front, there will be a new training program for educating writers about the business side of running a TV show. And to encourage wider viewing, networks can repeat the intial episodes of a series during the first two months without paying residuals. Both make sense to me.
Is it a good deal? Well, it doesn’t address the awful state of DVD residuals, but I really didn’t expect it would. You know how when something bad happens, people always say, “At least you have your health?” In this case, at least we have our health plan, which is certainly something to be happy about.
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October 13th, 2004 at 7:13 pm
Tell you what, John. Throw a PayPal link on your site and I’ll personally contribute whatever FAIR AMOUNT you tell me towards my copy of Big Fish! I imagine many others would as well. My point is not that you should be cyber-pan-handling but that somehow the CONSUMERS (and particularly, those who are first ardent fans, who happen to consume) need to have more power in the purchase. Idyllic, but not wrong.
October 14th, 2004 at 10:04 am
PayPal links have their place — just yesterday I happily clicked some cash over to Fredo Viola for his amazing piece The Sad Song. It’s a great example of being able to directly contribute to an artist.
Wide-spread PayPal-ing isn’t going to address the real issue with DVD residuals, which were set artificially low to allow studios to make money on then-revolutionary VHS tapes (which are expensive to produce), rather than DVDs (which are cheap to produce, and sell for much more).
Thanks for volunteering your money, Eric. But I think it’s better directed towards artists and writers who currently don’t have any other way of staying afloat. Some of my favorite websites, such as Macintouch and Daring Fireball rely on reader contributions to keep running.
October 21st, 2004 at 3:42 am
So is this the third huge mistake the WGA has made?
Any other screw ups I’m missing?
October 21st, 2004 at 9:31 am
I wouldn’t say it’s a mistake or screwup. I don’t know that a lot of progress would have been made on DVD residuals, even with a strike.
In all three of the cases you bring up, the Guild cut rates in order to allow new areas to grow. The problem was that when animation, cable and home video became huge industries, the studios weren’t willing to give up any of the windfall.
To me, the important thing is to look on the horizon for the next DVD-type paradigm shift, and be ready to prosper from it.