A Comment on Writers Guild of America
Whenever news of Hollywood writers appears, there are usually a number of freelancers who experience envy: Why don't we have someone protecting our rights, getting us money, and so on? I have nothing against WGA West (the Hollywood-oriented division) at all, but freelancers need to realize that the circumstances are night and day in their differences.
WGA came out of the studio system for movies and television, and so had a tradition of the writers being employees. That's what allowed them to form a union in the first place, because US law prohibits independent businesspeople from forming unions. (I believe it historically comes from concerns about monopolies and price fixing.) But even today, the writers are technically employees - temporary, to be sure, but employees, nevertheless. Producers and studios have to deduct taxes, they pay money for benefits to WGA - and they, not the writers, own all pretty much all the rights to the work. For those who have never looked at a WGA standard contract, it's an informative experience. Notice that the writers are going on strike to get more income from additional uses of their scripts. The reason they're going on strike is because they don't own the rights in question, and, so, cannot force an agreement in other ways.
Some rights - like publication and the right to reacquire a script - do come back under specific circumstances, and you can see some of that here. But the rights that writers have to convey are extensive. The trade off is for money and benefits. In other words, if you think that being a WGA writer means getting the best of all worlds, you're not being realistic. When you're in business, you have to make trade-offs, and that's true whether you're writing an article or a screenplay. Indulging in wishful thinking and wanting an organizational knight in white armor to protect you doesn't get you anywhere and only breeds resentment. Instead of pining for what isn't, take your energy and focus on what it - the opportunities you have to negotiate contracts, to work with companies that are giving you what you think is a reasonable deal.
WGA came out of the studio system for movies and television, and so had a tradition of the writers being employees. That's what allowed them to form a union in the first place, because US law prohibits independent businesspeople from forming unions. (I believe it historically comes from concerns about monopolies and price fixing.) But even today, the writers are technically employees - temporary, to be sure, but employees, nevertheless. Producers and studios have to deduct taxes, they pay money for benefits to WGA - and they, not the writers, own all pretty much all the rights to the work. For those who have never looked at a WGA standard contract, it's an informative experience. Notice that the writers are going on strike to get more income from additional uses of their scripts. The reason they're going on strike is because they don't own the rights in question, and, so, cannot force an agreement in other ways.
Some rights - like publication and the right to reacquire a script - do come back under specific circumstances, and you can see some of that here. But the rights that writers have to convey are extensive. The trade off is for money and benefits. In other words, if you think that being a WGA writer means getting the best of all worlds, you're not being realistic. When you're in business, you have to make trade-offs, and that's true whether you're writing an article or a screenplay. Indulging in wishful thinking and wanting an organizational knight in white armor to protect you doesn't get you anywhere and only breeds resentment. Instead of pining for what isn't, take your energy and focus on what it - the opportunities you have to negotiate contracts, to work with companies that are giving you what you think is a reasonable deal.
Labels: negotiation, WGA
posted by Erik Sherman | 9:13 AM
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