August 25, 2019 • 34 mins
In our first episode, we sit down with members of the Writers Guild of America West to discuss current issues, including a small matter regarding the ATA.
UW Voices: Jim Connor, Nancy Linari, and Bob Stephenson
UW Guests: WGA Captains Terri Kopp and Nick Mariani
Big thanks to our guests and our executive producer Jack for getting this podcast under way!
UnionWorking Links:
- Jim Connor on IMDb
- Nancy Linari on IMDb
- Bob Stephenson on IMDb
Guests and Topical Links:
- Terri Kopp on Twitter
- Nick Mariani on Twitter
- List of WGA-franchised agencies
Email us at info@unionworking.com
The UnionWorking Podcast is recorded at Culver City Studios
Executive Producer Jack Levy
http://podcastsage.com / jack@podcastsage.com / 818-233-0640
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (00:08):
and we're rolling on the union working podcast at
Culver City studios withpodcasts, sage union, working as
a grassroots organization offilm, Television and commercial
performers of Sag after
Speaker 3 (00:18):
we're dedicated to solutions, ideas and creating a
union that works for all of us.
So we hope you'll enjoy ourinformative, entertaining, edit
times, irreverent podcast aboutthe challenges facing the modern
day union.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Sure.
We support a membership drivenmembership up model because we
are the union.
I am Jim Connor.
Uh, I am wearing a hat calledthe union working.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm Nancy Ola.
I'm new to the union workingcore, but I've been at many,
many, many meetings and heartilysupport these guys.
And I'm Bob Stevenson, part ofthe union working corps.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
And today we have with us, we're lucky to have
with us Terry cop and NickMariani of the WGA West members
of the WGA, the writer's guildof America West.
And so you are cowboy writers?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
I am.
I've written, I've written somewesterns.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
Have you written Western Stereo?
No.
Westerns for me.
I do cops and robbers.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh that's kind of a western.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is bad cause we were justgonna talk about cowboys today.
We thought you guys only didwith, we brought you in today
and talk about how you guysfired all of your
representation.
Why did you do that?
And we want to get somebackground on that.
Explain it to our listeners.
Want to people don't understandwhat's going on in our industry.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Yeah, well it came from the membership.
You know, the, the leadership ofthe guild did outreach a few
years ago to the membership toask them like what were the
issues that were important tothem?
What were the problems that themembers were having?
And this was actually kind of, Ithink surprisingly a big issue
for people was that they feltthat their representatives were
not working in their bestinterests and that there was a
(01:56):
conflict of interest and thatthe practice of the agencies
collecting packaging fees fromthe studios was a conflict of
interest and had led to problemsin the relationship between the
agencies and the writer.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
And this started about a little over a decade
ago.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Well, it's actually, it's, it's probably more like 40
years in the making.
We are attempting to renegotiatea deal that that was last signed
in, what, 1973 that's when ourlast AMVA agreement was signed.
Wow.
And a lot has changed in theworld.
Yeah.
Between now and then.
The absolute landscape of mediahas changed and shifted in very
(02:30):
dramatic ways, but what has sortof become more pronounced over,
uh, certainly the last couple ofdecades is growing frustration
among writers over what they seeis very entrenched in systemic
conflicts of interest.
Terry mentioned packaging fees,which we can get into in detail.
There's also affiliateproduction, but the general
sense is that there has been auncoupling of sorts between
(02:53):
agency interests and writerinterests, which goes a long way
to explaining a, the downwardpressure that has been placed on
writers' quotes over the lastseveral decades.
We've seen a steady drop inwriter income by about 23% our
hope is that if we can besuccessful, get the best deal we
possibly can for writers,hopefully realign agency
incentives with our own thatwe'll be able to correct those
(03:14):
trends that have been in kind ofa negative direction for some
time
Speaker 6 (03:17):
and can, can you sort of explain the packaging thing
so people know what that is?
Yeah, so basically rather thancollecting time percent from an
individual writer, the agencyhas negotiated basically a side
deal with the studios and sothey collect, it's called like
three three 10 they collect 3%of the license fee upfront,
(03:39):
which is taken out of the budgetof the show, which a lot of
people do not know.
Wow.
Wow.
So you can have shows where youknow CAA WME are collecting 30
40 50$60,000 an episode thatcomes out of the budget of the
show.
So that's money that's not goingto another actor or this not
going to another writer.
They collect 3% of another 3% ofthe license fee deferred and
(04:02):
then they collect 10% of thebackend profit of the show.
So when they tell us to takeless money to keep this show
going, that's right, 10% no,they waived their 10% fee.
If you are hired onto a showthat the agency quote unquote
packaged, then you don't pay 10%so you know kind of looks like a
(04:23):
good deal for a lower levelwriter who goes onto that show.
You don't have to pay my 10% butoverall what it's done is it's
divorced the agency's interestsfrom its clients' interests.
So you can imagine where astudio has, you know, you're an
agency has a show that'spackaged and it's not packaged.
One show, this package one showthat isn't studio calls up the
agent on a show that's packagedand says, Hey, you know, we're
(04:45):
on the bubble for season two.
Do you think you could get nickto lower his fee?
And the agent, their income isnow tied to the back end profit
in the show and not to how muchmoney nick is making.
So they go, Yay, let me see whatI can do.
Whereas if the show wasn'tpackaged, the agency would call
up and say, Hey, can you getnick to lower his fee?
They just say, fuck you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's meant that at the mid,especially the mid to lower
(05:09):
level writers for mental lowerlevel writers, they're not, they
don't have an representativewho's truly fighting for that
extra granted episode or thenext thing as well.
Wherever show is doing reallypoorly, the agency would
literally say, yeah, we'll getrid of that one.
We have another one.
Okay.
However, is that you have tojust, I'll just dump that and
slowly dump their own clients.
(05:32):
Yeah.
The show runner.
So we got a new yours, this one.
They go, okay, cool.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Now we know of many, many, many examples where show
runners have tried to resistpackaging fees.
And by the way, it's, it's veryimportant to distinguish between
packaging, which is a goodthing.
Yeah.
[inaudible] fees.
Yeah.
Which is the really kind of theracketeering scheme, for lack of
a better word, that we're tryingto do away with packaging is an
agent's job to begin with.
You know, you're an agent, yourepresent a director, you
(05:58):
represent a writer, you'rerepresenting an actor.
The writer's got an idea.
The director is looking for amovie.
The actor needs to is lookingfor a good role.
You put them all together andyou have a valuable package that
is great.
No, nobody objected to that.
We'd go to agencies that do thatand that has been going on for
decades.
There's been gone.
It should have been able tocontinue to go on, but the idea
that agencies are somehowentitled to these massive fees
(06:21):
from, from the studios and fromthe buyers simply for doing what
was already their job to be donewith is crazy.
And what they did in kind of abrilliant ingenious way is they
seized upon a frustration thatthey knew a lot of their clients
were having, which is as a lotof these agencies have become
vertically integrated as a lotof them have gotten bigger and
bigger and bigger and becomethese behemoths more.
(06:41):
Their clients were forced totake on managers, more of their
clients were forced to take onlawyers.
Now you have gone from clientshaving to pay 10% commission in
a generation pay 25% incommission.
So you'd go to those sameclients and you say to those
clients, how about we refund youthe 10% we'll give you a 10%
raise.
You get your 10% commissionback.
Well, to a young up and comingwriter who may or may not know
(07:02):
the intricacies of packagingfees and why they're so
pernicious and what they do toshow budgets, that sounds like
great deal and 10% is verymeaningful if you're, if you're
a low level writer who's tryingto get his or her career to
start going on the upswing.
So they capitalize off of thatand then they create a system
where they can literally just bydoing what should've been their
jobs in the first place, makemore money off a show oftentimes
(07:25):
than the writer who created thatshow.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
So when did the fees start coming into play?
Speaker 6 (07:30):
I mean, I think it's been growing and growing and
growing.
For a while.
It used to be, I don't know whenthey sort of became a problem,
but it used to be that they werereally only collected packeting
for you when they actually put adirector and actor or writer,
when they actually packaged thedeal.
Right now they demand apackaging fee for doing nothing.
(07:51):
Like they just bring the writerto the table.
They're demanding a packagingfee.
Wow.
And they will, you know, we havenight nightmares stories of them
blowing up deals because thestudio is refusing to pay a
packaging fee because you didn'tdo anything.
You didn't package the deal.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
You know, the moment and the moment you represent
both clients on that show andthe show itself, it is the most
basic and fundamental is, is thevery textbook definition of
conflict of interest.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Sad too, because I, I've written a couple of'em in
the WJ, I've written out cultureand now as an actor and writer,
I can't really do that becauseagencies want you to only write,
you have to just be on a showand work, work, work because
they make so little compared towhat they used to like just, you
know, to be a grunt, being inthere, it's great, but in the
writers room, but then I can'task if they don't want that and
you know, it's like, oh no,that's going to take you out of
(08:37):
this, then we don't want torepresent you.
You know?
It's very difficult.
It's interesting.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
Yeah.
You could never do it.
I used to be a lawyer, like as alawyer, I just look at this and
go like, are you kidding?
Yeah.
Like lawyers would never beallowed to do this.
It's a violation of you're freeto share your duties.
So yeah, you'd get disbarred.
And
Speaker 7 (08:54):
so why, how come the National Labor Relations Board
Speaker 4 (08:56):
and stepped in?
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Well, it looks like a good question, doesn't it?
You know, when MCA split off tobecome universal, they were
dealing with the Kennedy JusticeDepartment.
We have the Donald J.
Trump justice department.
So again, it's a little bit of adifferent landscape.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
We did file a lawsuit.
So WJ has filed a lawsuit
Speaker 4 (09:15):
April 17th, 2019.
Yeah, I understand.
Yeah, approximately now.
Um, so the influx of the privateequity firms buying a minority
share and CAA WMA and then overfour years doubling that
investment, tripling thatinvestment and so they can buy
more of the agencies so that nowthat they have a majority stake
(09:38):
and now it's basically you arejust a business that is sucking
the wealth out.
Speaker 6 (09:43):
Yeah.
And that's the other major thingthat we're going after here is,
is agency owned production.
So, you know, those guys are notinvesting in WME and CAA and UTA
because they're investing in a10% rate.
They're investing because thoseguys are starting their own
studios and all of us in thisroom should be scared x.
(10:05):
You know shitless right aboutthat because you don't win.
None of us want to be in aposition where our Asian is
actually literally negotiatingwith itself.
Right?
Yes.
For your,
Speaker 5 (10:19):
imagine a world where your agent is your boss.
Yeah.
And your boss works for apublicly traded company because
that is, that is literally, thatis literally the prospect.
I mean Debbie[inaudible] is inthe process of filing an IPO,
right.
That is the track that CAA andUTA are sort of, I'm that
problem in commercials where yousee a is the advertising agency
for Coca-Cola.
(10:39):
They make a nonunion spot forKogan calls everyone in the spot
except for their celebrity thatthey put in.
That spot is getting[inaudible]union.
But that guy gets paid and it's,it's crazy.
Like you're eating yourself up.
I'm like, you're hiring on uniontalent, subverting all your
other people.
It's crazy cause they make moreoff coke, you know?
Speaker 6 (10:59):
No, it's crazy.
I mean, I think that's kind ofthe, to me even bigger problem
than packaging views and packagereviews are a problem.
But this issue of like, oh wellwe'll just put up a wall and
we'll pretend that we aren'treally owned by the same
company.
I mean it's like that's a joke.
To be fair.
They're all
Speaker 5 (11:16):
the scissor like clearer.
Yeah.
They have different[inaudible]streets in century city
[inaudible] wise you have, youhave to wait for a light to
change.
You have to cross a crosswalk.
It's, it's pretty divorced[inaudible] system and it rains
five days and you don't, yeah.
You never know when you're ready.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I heard this interesting fact last night that
if there, there's a 50 50 splitbetween Labor and capital.
So you get the workers and theinvestors and the management,
then everybody's happy.
You know, the middle classsurvives, you get paid all that
stuff.
But now the, the split inAmerica is 60 40 and in favor of
(11:58):
capital.
And so, you know, stock marketthinks the economy is doing
great because the stock marketis doing well when people have
to have three jobs.
Just to get by and we are actorsand writers are affected by
this.
We are not, you know, our workhas gone drastically down.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Why there was a, a, we had a, we had a big uh,
membership meeting today andthere was a gentlemen, uh, uh, I
hope he won't mind me sayingthis, a little bit of an older
gentleman who's been in theguild for, I think it was he
looking at me when you say thatlooking around the room.
I looked, yeah, I would read itcause I don't want to, I don't
want to look in a mirror.
And I said this guy, this guy,um, I think you said he'd been
in the guild for 30 plus yearsand he gave his quote for what
(12:35):
he was being paid at.
What kind of a producer did hesay he was an s?
Was he a superhero hoe?
Supervising producer, which isan old title, I think.
Right.
But the point is, he's, he gavehis quote at that position 30
years ago and somebody who isabove that level today is only
making$1,000 more per week orper year or per episode or per
(12:56):
week, per episode.
I mean that's over 30 years.
That is the stagnation of wages
Speaker 4 (13:01):
and across the industry since the 70s yeah.
Every industry is a stagnatedway.
Speaker 6 (13:05):
I'm sorry, I think that goes crazy.
I was going to say that, thatthe guild put together a list of
median quotes for the differentlevels of TV writers and I was
making for, for supervisingproducer.
I was making the same quotethat's in that median 17 years
ago.
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Yeah.
And then with the new streamingcoming in, they don't even deal
with quotes, you know?
Right.
Like you, you can, you have aquote for a weekly show on
broadcast and they're like, no,we're just going to pay your
1300 bucks.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
You know?
So it's a very strange economywe're living in.
What was the, so you were so[inaudible]
Speaker 5 (13:41):
the packaging and then there was the packaging
fees, agony fees, packaging.
Packaging is good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Two fees and then you weresaying there was something else.
Affiliate production[inaudible]productions.
Yeah.
So affiliate production is justbasically when agencies own
production companies, which youknow, packaging fees is kind of
the big sexy issue right nowbecause it has been so
entrenched for many, many yearsand even decades.
(14:03):
Affiliate production is kind ofthe looming threat on the
horizon, although it's already,it's already here.
Three of the three of the bigfour agencies already have
production companies.
WME has endeavor contents, cahas whip, UTA has civic center
media.
Um, and it's, it's just, it's avery, I mean on the one hand we
like having more buyers in thelandscape and we don't want to
(14:23):
discourage that.
But it's a very, very, veryscary proposition to say to a
writer that your agent is goingto be your boss.
And that seems to be where we'reheaded, especially when all of
those same agencies are in theprocess of becoming publicly on
companies.
That is a, that is a conflictthat I just cannot even begin to
wrap my head around.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
So how isn't this a conflict of interest?
It is, but it's not anenforceable in any way.
It's more like an honorablething that people shouldn't,
well that's what the lawsuit isabout.
So the lawsuit alleges thatthey're violating their
fiduciary duty.
So the state of California saysyou have agencies have a
fiduciary duty and this allegesthat they're violating.
Okay.
So
Speaker 2 (15:02):
it's a conflict of interest.
Right.
We have sort of the same problem, um, when you were talking
about the Trump administration,because with ficor it's, it's a
massive problem in our union.
And when you go to Washington dc You know, it's on the bucks
international law, they don'twant to touch it.
Hey, you know, the Trumpadministration, in fact, they'd
love to be there and break youup.
You know, so I can understandthat.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Hi, it's Jack leading producer of the union working
podcast and partner at podcastsage as an awarded audio producer
who's contributed to some of thefinest feature films, television
shows, video games and recordsproduced.
I've been inundated withrequests by peers and major
studios alike to produce andmanage podcast production and
I'd be delighted to do the samefor you.
Have an idea for a podcast anddon't know where to start or who
(15:49):
to call.
Look no further.
Have a scripted podcast,investigative or documentary
interview show, Solo cast gameshow, talk show, or literally
any other project.
Give me a call at(818) 233-0640that's(818) 233-0640 or email me
at Jack at podcast, sage.com wehave world-class studios here in
(16:12):
Culver City and can work remoteon location literally anywhere
and have the broadbandexperience to help with
everything from conceptdevelopment to recording and
editing, staffing and writersand of course music.
Call me at(818) 233-0640 orshoot me an email at jacket
podcast, sage.com mentioned youand your working and get a 10%
(16:32):
discount.
Hell, I'll make it
Speaker 1 (16:34):
t
Speaker 3 (16:35):
and now back to union working
Speaker 1 (16:38):
[inaudible]
Speaker 5 (16:39):
by the way, on a on a slightly different, it's also
worth noting that that a similarbattle was fought not too long
ago in sports where sports,specifically Kareem Abdul Jabbar
took on his own agent oversimilar conflicts of interest
and they were able tosuccessfully implement a code of
conduct, much of which thewriters guild model gets own
code of conduct on and that codeof conduct that applies to
(17:01):
sports agents applies to all ofthe sports agents at CAA.
So the next time you hear onany, wherever it might be an
interview with Ari Emanuel orJay sures or anybody who runs
these agencies and they talkabout how writers are throwing
the industry into chaos andasking for just such an
unreasonable thing, it's worthtaking a pause and asking if
(17:23):
it's so unreasonable.
How is it that this same code ofconduct is already a clickable
to CAA sports agents?
Why shouldn't the same fiduciaryand ethical standards apply to
Aaron Sorkin's agent thatalready apply to Lebron James?
Speaker 6 (17:39):
Well, I think you guys aren't as good as shape as
the athletes.
I mean, you're a fit guy.
We have to write[inaudible]finish.
That's right.
More sports movies.
That's it.
That's right.
I'd put you up to Lebronanytime.
Yeah.
I just, I just don't want to bethere.
If you do,
Speaker 7 (17:57):
you guys Ra and all those guys, they're making
millions of dollars off of thisstuff.
They're being taken care of sothat they can explore.
You just bought a nice new housein south willy and to me it has
a lot of stuff.
Well he's not gonna live thereyear round though, so it's not
right.
(18:17):
So you have elections coming uplike we do.
Can you give us some backgroundabout that?
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Yeah.
So there's a, when we went out,when we took a vote back in
April or March, actually, youknow, whether we wanted to
support this action in 95.3% ofthe membership voted in favor.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
All right, so you, so how many members do you have?
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Oh God, do we 15,000 I think we have 15,000 total
total number of people vote.
Is that delegates 9,000.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Was that number before coming to this podcast?
But I believe it's 9,000.
Speaker 7 (18:56):
Well you had like 7,000 on on the day that you
guys were gonna, you know, fireyour agents.
7,000 writers fired there, right?
Yes.
Yes.
That's incredible.
That's like half the year.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
It was, it was an overwhelming show of solidarity,
which just goes to show you how,how deep the frustration.
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
And I wanted to touch on that because it seemed like
you guys did it.
It was so well organized as youguys roll it out.
And even like, I watched thevideos to get the updates and
it's there.
So well done.
But how long ago did that startto get that ball rolling?
It seemed like, I mean, you guyshad the lots, you had the
verbiage down in what you weregoing to say.
It seemed like it was so wellput together.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
I think, uh, well first of all, I think we have
tremendous leadership.
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
Right now.
I mean, you know, so you thinkDavid Goodman, he's a good man.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
I would walk [inaudible] I see what you did.
He's not a writer.
I would walk through fire forDavid.
Good.
Oh, that's pretty amazing.
Pretty amazing.
That's great.
And
Speaker 5 (19:55):
honestly, I feel so lucky and fortunate to have the
uh, the, the leadership in thatwe do right now.
It's not always the case.
Leaderships come and go.
Some are better than others.
The leadership that we have inplace right now from, from John
August and Michelle Mulroney onthe feature side to David
Goodman to David Young are ourchief negotiator is just, I
(20:15):
mean, I, every meeting I go to,I come away just more and more
impressed with, with thestrategy and the way they think
through every singlepossibility.
And then, uh, there's been atremendous effort in terms of
just grassroots organizing amongthe membership.
We have a captain system that'svery robust.
Harry and I are both captains.
The, the membership of thewriters guild is more in touch
(20:37):
with each other andcommunicating amongst each
other.
Uh, I think in a way that isprobably[inaudible].
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Yeah.
Can you talk about the captainsystem with, what does that mean
for people that don't know?
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Yeah, it's just an organizing system
Speaker 7 (20:48):
we have in place, you know, for strike, you know,
authorizations for differentactions that the union has taken
where there's just people whothe captains reach out.
We are literally make sure thatevery, every writer is on a
team.
So basically you're kind ofassigned to a captain and that
captain communicates with you,make sure you know everything,
(21:10):
you've kind of maintainedcommunication, talk to people
about what's going on, keep themupdated, get them out, get them
out to vote.
You know, we're working on a getout the vote campaign now like,
so it's, it's, it's been reallyamazing.
The, the, the other thing that Ithink has been really heartening
and pretty incredible is that,you know, we decided as a group
(21:32):
to fire our agents right duringstaffing season for, for
networks.
And so there was a lot ofanxiety about how, what was I
going to look like?
Right.
And people stepped up to helpeach other out and just it,
there was a grassroots kind ofmovement that, that happened on
Twitter where people starteddoing Saul, they'd call it WJ
(21:53):
solidarity challenge, wherepeople were offering to read
each other's scripts andrecommend each other to show
runners.
And then people were reading,you know, assistants and other
people and, um, people werereading scripts and doing a
staffing boost and shouting out.
But the WGA itself also createdthis staffing portal online.
(22:14):
Yeah.
And it was so as a show runner,you could go on, people could
submit themselves to the showand submit their material.
And so the showrunners could goon and say, Oh, I'm looking for
this kind of writer whospecialize in this kind of
thing.
And so it really was this justwriters showing up for other
(22:34):
writers and it was incredible towatch and it was incredible to
see the guilt, you know, putthat together, you know?
So we don't have that.
No, we don't have captains or no[inaudible] sounds great.
How many keepers[inaudible]captains or doesn't work good
calls around.
Right?
It's different.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
Kind of came from that cause it was kind of, it
came from the strike captainsand it just, we decided to keep
that structure in place.
Did our captain systemoriginated with the last NBA
negotiation or did it predatethat it goes as far back as 2007
because it went back to the 2007strike.
We had captains in the, yeah, inthat strike and then it kept
(23:12):
going in the last round.
So,
Speaker 7 (23:15):
and so you guys had that strike was about DVDs and
share of social media and allthat stuff.
The Internet that strikes at theInternet and successful.
You're welcome by the way.
[inaudible] yeah.
So it was successful for youguys?
Oh, I would argue the strike was2007 strike.
I would argue that that strikewas an overwhelming success.
There's been a little bit of afalse narrative that has been
(23:36):
allowed to take root afterwardsbecause, well, there are a
couple of things.
The, the movie business was inthe process of constructing.
We had the recession
Speaker 5 (23:46):
and the DVD market fell out, none of which was the
fault of, uh, the writer'sstrike.
You know, correlation does notequal causation, but what that
strike got us so important wasjurisdiction over the Internet.
And Yeah, at the time theposition of the amp PTP was, uh,
we'll figure out the internet.
[inaudible]
Speaker 7 (24:05):
yeah.
We don't know what is[inaudible]yeah,
Speaker 5 (24:10):
we are, I think, don't quote me on this, but tell
me if I'm wrong.
I believe it's 50% of writersright now are getting their
primary income from eitherNetflix, Amazon, or one of the
other big streamers.
Is that correct?
It's, it's, it's massive ifthat, if that, I might be
overstating that statistic, butit's, it's massive.
(24:31):
So that alone jurisdiction overthe Internet, which our sister
guilds also got beginningpattern bargaining in my mind, I
would argue that that alone madethat strike a huge success.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
Yeah.
We definitely have Fox andDisney everyday that that
negotiation was not good for usbecause that write up, you guys
finished, the economy went andthen we had money and we
couldn't do, but we couldn't doanymore.
It's like, no, just keepworking, just keep working.
We're all losing our prices.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
And look, we, you know, we, we would have hoped
for a better deal.
We would have hoped for betterstreaming residuals.
That's another battle we have tofight.
But you know, it, I think thedeal that we got was pretty
good.
And you know, it doesn't helpmatters when you have, you know,
in that case, the DGA going in,you know, in the middle of
basically in effect crossing thepicket line and going in and
negotiating a side deal while asister union is out striking.
(25:24):
So all things considered withthe amount of force and pressure
that was on the writer's guildand the fact that many times,
historically, these battles seemto have to be fought by the WJ
alone.
I think history will rememberthat straight.
Speaker 7 (25:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's uh, so what do youguys see in the future coming
out?
Like we end with the streamingplatforms.
Um, do you guys have problemswith advanced residuals?
Do you guys deal with that atall?
Cause that's one of our biggestproblems that you guys have
residuals.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
They have, we have a realproblem with that.
They, they, yeah, they tell you,oh you have to say it up front
(25:59):
and say, Hey, you know what?
We're going to give you thismuch money.
But they don't tell your agentthat part of that was advanced
residuals.
You're not really making thatkind of money.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
It was under the impression that the buyouts were
to erase backend.
Am I, am I, cause there are,there are, at least for writers,
I don't know, maybe it's adifferent thing with sag.
If you have a movie on, onNetflix, you get residuals,
right?
I mean there's a residualformula for that.
The buyouts, you know, you'll,you'll, you'll read about like,
you know, monster deals in thetrades where Netflix spies out,
(26:27):
somebody's back ends.
They don't want to, they don'twant to pay out backend.
Right.
And that's, that's a, that's alittle nebulous and I don't, I
haven't had that high classproblem yet in my career, so I
don't know exactly how,
Speaker 7 (26:36):
no, no, I don't, we don't have the advanced
residuals.
Yeah.
That I know of.
No problem for us.
Yeah.
And so what's
Speaker 4 (26:44):
going on with like Netflix doing 750 pilots last
year, a thousand pilots thisyear.
And what is that like?
And you guys, you know, firedall of your talent agencies.
How does that affect youremployment?
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Yeah.
I mean, the same number ofwriters are, are working in the
same, the jobs are gettingfilled.
So it's not as though we're notworking.
I do think the action probablyaffects some of us more than
effects others.
I think lower-level futurewriters are probably at a little
bit of a disadvantage duringthis action.
But overall, as a group, youknow, we're all working at the
(27:17):
same amount, right.
So I don't know that it's made adifference or how to, huge
effect.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
And You created that to, uh, you were talking about
you guys all got together, thestaffing stuff, having it at
your union, right?
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Yeah.
I mean the writers guild'sreally put out open writing
assignments, you know, connectedthe, the show runners to the
different, to act to writers.
So yeah, it's, it's actuallybeen pretty amazing.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
And you know, the, I think the bottom line kind of is
business like life finds a way,you know, you take out the
middlemen, you know, show stillneed to be staffed and right.
Buyers need content and writershave things to sell.
I mean, you know, there, thereare a number of ways that I
think the agencies kind ofunderestimated us in this
process.
And that's one of them.
You know, we have real valuecollectively.
(28:06):
Um, the entire business that isnow a$56 billion in operating
profit business is dependentupon the content that writers
create that need does not goaway just because agents are
suddenly not employed anymore.
So, right.
Or preceded the agent.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
So did you have close relationships with your agents?
You'd been with them a longtime.
How did they respond to this?
The individual's not there.
The think it depended on, itdepended on, yes.
Who Your agent was and where areyou?
Right.
Your agent was, my agent wasfantastic.
Like I actually left CAA, I wasat ca for 15 years or something
(28:44):
and I left ca for capitalinstaller a few years ago, which
was the best career move I made.
Um, just being at a smallerboutique led agency has been
just my career.
Went through the roof.
She was fantastic.
I mean she literally when I, Ireached out to her cause we as a
group decided that we were allgonna sign letters through the
(29:06):
WGA so that we were going tofire them through like a form
letter that went out through theWGA.
But I emailed my agent in personand said, hey see you on the
other side.
Love you sticking with my union.
But you know, and she wrote backand said, okay, you know, I
totally understand.
Make sure you sign the formletter through your, through the
union.
(29:26):
Like, she really, she didn'twant me to get in trouble with
my union.
You know what I mean?
That's great.
Um, but I know some peopledidn't have that experience.
I think, you know, WMA clientsdidn't.
So, um, you've, I knew andyou've got
Speaker 5 (29:42):
a deals done with most of the boutique agencies.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
No, right?
I mean, yeah.
Caplin staller signed a coupleof weeks ago, um,
Speaker 5 (29:51):
buckwild sign for science,
Speaker 6 (29:54):
right?
Yeah.
There was a, another sort of midtier agency that was in
negotiations apparently lastweek.
But when, oh, going back to yourquestion about the election.
So there is a group of, ofpeople who are running in
opposition to current leadershipright now.
So when those people announcedtheir candidacy, that
negotiation apparently fellapart.
(30:15):
So, yeah.
So we do have an election comingup at the end of the month.
There's a group of slate ofcandidates who, you know, as far
as I can tell, they're just,they just want to get back to
the negotiating table, theirposition.
You know, I, I, I hope thatthey'll be more specific about
what they're, I'm trying to bevery difficult with that.
I have a platform that you can,you can turn right now, platform
(30:38):
is get back to the table.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
Hmm.
But then specifically theirplatform is get back to the
table with the ATA.
Right.
Because we're at the table.
We never left the table.
Um, what we did leave was weleft the table that had the
association of talent agencies.
Um, and we've been, we've beennegotiating with agencies
individually ever since.
Um, oh yeah.
They're their platform.
Me, I think if I'm trying to beas fair as I possibly can, I
(31:03):
think their platform is, we needto be negotiating with the ATA
again, which frankly doesn'tmake any sense to me from
everything that I've read, fromall the statements they've put
out from all the social mediaposts that they've made, it just
seems to me that they have anunrealistic sense that if they
sit down at a table with RMannual, somehow they will
(31:23):
magically be able to get him toact fairly.
Right.
Where David Goodman and DavidYoung could not, which again, I
say this with all due respect,just strikes me as unrealistic
expectations at best and magicalthinking at worst.
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
I believe there's some sort of revenue sharing
agreement that we can come to.
That's right.
That magically none of us havethought of yet.
That, you know, will be theanswer to this, this whole
thing.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
But they won't tell us what it is.
They will tell us what it is.
So that's the magic in it.
That's right.
We don't have a good agreementwith ATA.
Right?
That's right.
You guys don't have a friend.
No, we don't.
We haven't for years.
Right.
Sucks.
All right, well we gotta wind uphere.
Culver City is closing, so wegotta get Outta here.
Thank you again to Terry Cop,Nick Mariani, WGA.
(32:13):
Thanks for having us.
Yeah.
What, I mean, members need toget together and talk about this
stuff and we should entertainthe union should be working.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Yeah, that's right.
And we, uh, I think, I think allof us would very much like to
see a future where, where theWGA and sag are collectively
bargaining together on some ofthese things.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Well, this is a surprise.
I was saving too to the end.
We are not actors anymore.
We're going to be writers.
So I got a script outside.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Uh, all right, so follow us at union working on
Facebook and our website at[inaudible] Dot Com oh and we
need to thank the people whomake this possible podcast.
I guess they didn't have awriter writing that from me.
I just was winging it.
Thank you guys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I hope you all enjoyed thisfirst installment of the union
working podcast.
Make sure to download the nextepisode.
(33:01):
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[inaudible]
Speaker 2 (00:08):
and we're rolling on the union working podcast at
Culver City studios withpodcasts, sage union, working as
a grassroots organization offilm, Television and commercial
performers of Sag after
Speaker 3 (00:18):
we're dedicated to solutions, ideas and creating a
union that works for all of us.
So we hope you'll enjoy ourinformative, entertaining, edit
times, irreverent podcast aboutthe challenges facing the modern
day union.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Sure.
We support a membership drivenmembership up model because we
are the union.
I am Jim Connor.
Uh, I am wearing a hat calledthe union working.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm Nancy Ola.
I'm new to the union workingcore, but I've been at many,
many, many meetings and heartilysupport these guys.
And I'm Bob Stevenson, part ofthe union working corps.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
And today we have with us, we're lucky to have
with us Terry cop and NickMariani of the WGA West members
of the WGA, the writer's guildof America West.
And so you are cowboy writers?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
I am.
I've written, I've written somewesterns.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
Have you written Western Stereo?
No.
Westerns for me.
I do cops and robbers.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh that's kind of a western.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is bad cause we were justgonna talk about cowboys today.
We thought you guys only didwith, we brought you in today
and talk about how you guysfired all of your
representation.
Why did you do that?
And we want to get somebackground on that.
Explain it to our listeners.
Want to people don't understandwhat's going on in our industry.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Yeah, well it came from the membership.
You know, the, the leadership ofthe guild did outreach a few
years ago to the membership toask them like what were the
issues that were important tothem?
What were the problems that themembers were having?
And this was actually kind of, Ithink surprisingly a big issue
for people was that they feltthat their representatives were
not working in their bestinterests and that there was a
(01:56):
conflict of interest and thatthe practice of the agencies
collecting packaging fees fromthe studios was a conflict of
interest and had led to problemsin the relationship between the
agencies and the writer.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
And this started about a little over a decade
ago.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Well, it's actually, it's, it's probably more like 40
years in the making.
We are attempting to renegotiatea deal that that was last signed
in, what, 1973 that's when ourlast AMVA agreement was signed.
Wow.
And a lot has changed in theworld.
Yeah.
Between now and then.
The absolute landscape of mediahas changed and shifted in very
(02:30):
dramatic ways, but what has sortof become more pronounced over,
uh, certainly the last couple ofdecades is growing frustration
among writers over what they seeis very entrenched in systemic
conflicts of interest.
Terry mentioned packaging fees,which we can get into in detail.
There's also affiliateproduction, but the general
sense is that there has been auncoupling of sorts between
(02:53):
agency interests and writerinterests, which goes a long way
to explaining a, the downwardpressure that has been placed on
writers' quotes over the lastseveral decades.
We've seen a steady drop inwriter income by about 23% our
hope is that if we can besuccessful, get the best deal we
possibly can for writers,hopefully realign agency
incentives with our own thatwe'll be able to correct those
(03:14):
trends that have been in kind ofa negative direction for some
time
Speaker 6 (03:17):
and can, can you sort of explain the packaging thing
so people know what that is?
Yeah, so basically rather thancollecting time percent from an
individual writer, the agencyhas negotiated basically a side
deal with the studios and sothey collect, it's called like
three three 10 they collect 3%of the license fee upfront,
(03:39):
which is taken out of the budgetof the show, which a lot of
people do not know.
Wow.
Wow.
So you can have shows where youknow CAA WME are collecting 30
40 50$60,000 an episode thatcomes out of the budget of the
show.
So that's money that's not goingto another actor or this not
going to another writer.
They collect 3% of another 3% ofthe license fee deferred and
(04:02):
then they collect 10% of thebackend profit of the show.
So when they tell us to takeless money to keep this show
going, that's right, 10% no,they waived their 10% fee.
If you are hired onto a showthat the agency quote unquote
packaged, then you don't pay 10%so you know kind of looks like a
(04:23):
good deal for a lower levelwriter who goes onto that show.
You don't have to pay my 10% butoverall what it's done is it's
divorced the agency's interestsfrom its clients' interests.
So you can imagine where astudio has, you know, you're an
agency has a show that'spackaged and it's not packaged.
One show, this package one showthat isn't studio calls up the
agent on a show that's packagedand says, Hey, you know, we're
(04:45):
on the bubble for season two.
Do you think you could get nickto lower his fee?
And the agent, their income isnow tied to the back end profit
in the show and not to how muchmoney nick is making.
So they go, Yay, let me see whatI can do.
Whereas if the show wasn'tpackaged, the agency would call
up and say, Hey, can you getnick to lower his fee?
They just say, fuck you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's meant that at the mid,especially the mid to lower
(05:09):
level writers for mental lowerlevel writers, they're not, they
don't have an representativewho's truly fighting for that
extra granted episode or thenext thing as well.
Wherever show is doing reallypoorly, the agency would
literally say, yeah, we'll getrid of that one.
We have another one.
Okay.
However, is that you have tojust, I'll just dump that and
slowly dump their own clients.
(05:32):
Yeah.
The show runner.
So we got a new yours, this one.
They go, okay, cool.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Now we know of many, many, many examples where show
runners have tried to resistpackaging fees.
And by the way, it's, it's veryimportant to distinguish between
packaging, which is a goodthing.
Yeah.
[inaudible] fees.
Yeah.
Which is the really kind of theracketeering scheme, for lack of
a better word, that we're tryingto do away with packaging is an
agent's job to begin with.
You know, you're an agent, yourepresent a director, you
(05:58):
represent a writer, you'rerepresenting an actor.
The writer's got an idea.
The director is looking for amovie.
The actor needs to is lookingfor a good role.
You put them all together andyou have a valuable package that
is great.
No, nobody objected to that.
We'd go to agencies that do thatand that has been going on for
decades.
There's been gone.
It should have been able tocontinue to go on, but the idea
that agencies are somehowentitled to these massive fees
(06:21):
from, from the studios and fromthe buyers simply for doing what
was already their job to be donewith is crazy.
And what they did in kind of abrilliant ingenious way is they
seized upon a frustration thatthey knew a lot of their clients
were having, which is as a lotof these agencies have become
vertically integrated as a lotof them have gotten bigger and
bigger and bigger and becomethese behemoths more.
(06:41):
Their clients were forced totake on managers, more of their
clients were forced to take onlawyers.
Now you have gone from clientshaving to pay 10% commission in
a generation pay 25% incommission.
So you'd go to those sameclients and you say to those
clients, how about we refund youthe 10% we'll give you a 10%
raise.
You get your 10% commissionback.
Well, to a young up and comingwriter who may or may not know
(07:02):
the intricacies of packagingfees and why they're so
pernicious and what they do toshow budgets, that sounds like
great deal and 10% is verymeaningful if you're, if you're
a low level writer who's tryingto get his or her career to
start going on the upswing.
So they capitalize off of thatand then they create a system
where they can literally just bydoing what should've been their
jobs in the first place, makemore money off a show oftentimes
(07:25):
than the writer who created thatshow.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
So when did the fees start coming into play?
Speaker 6 (07:30):
I mean, I think it's been growing and growing and
growing.
For a while.
It used to be, I don't know whenthey sort of became a problem,
but it used to be that they werereally only collected packeting
for you when they actually put adirector and actor or writer,
when they actually packaged thedeal.
Right now they demand apackaging fee for doing nothing.
(07:51):
Like they just bring the writerto the table.
They're demanding a packagingfee.
Wow.
And they will, you know, we havenight nightmares stories of them
blowing up deals because thestudio is refusing to pay a
packaging fee because you didn'tdo anything.
You didn't package the deal.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
You know, the moment and the moment you represent
both clients on that show andthe show itself, it is the most
basic and fundamental is, is thevery textbook definition of
conflict of interest.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Sad too, because I, I've written a couple of'em in
the WJ, I've written out cultureand now as an actor and writer,
I can't really do that becauseagencies want you to only write,
you have to just be on a showand work, work, work because
they make so little compared towhat they used to like just, you
know, to be a grunt, being inthere, it's great, but in the
writers room, but then I can'task if they don't want that and
you know, it's like, oh no,that's going to take you out of
(08:37):
this, then we don't want torepresent you.
You know?
It's very difficult.
It's interesting.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
Yeah.
You could never do it.
I used to be a lawyer, like as alawyer, I just look at this and
go like, are you kidding?
Yeah.
Like lawyers would never beallowed to do this.
It's a violation of you're freeto share your duties.
So yeah, you'd get disbarred.
And
Speaker 7 (08:54):
so why, how come the National Labor Relations Board
Speaker 4 (08:56):
and stepped in?
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Well, it looks like a good question, doesn't it?
You know, when MCA split off tobecome universal, they were
dealing with the Kennedy JusticeDepartment.
We have the Donald J.
Trump justice department.
So again, it's a little bit of adifferent landscape.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
We did file a lawsuit.
So WJ has filed a lawsuit
Speaker 4 (09:15):
April 17th, 2019.
Yeah, I understand.
Yeah, approximately now.
Um, so the influx of the privateequity firms buying a minority
share and CAA WMA and then overfour years doubling that
investment, tripling thatinvestment and so they can buy
more of the agencies so that nowthat they have a majority stake
(09:38):
and now it's basically you arejust a business that is sucking
the wealth out.
Speaker 6 (09:43):
Yeah.
And that's the other major thingthat we're going after here is,
is agency owned production.
So, you know, those guys are notinvesting in WME and CAA and UTA
because they're investing in a10% rate.
They're investing because thoseguys are starting their own
studios and all of us in thisroom should be scared x.
(10:05):
You know shitless right aboutthat because you don't win.
None of us want to be in aposition where our Asian is
actually literally negotiatingwith itself.
Right?
Yes.
For your,
Speaker 5 (10:19):
imagine a world where your agent is your boss.
Yeah.
And your boss works for apublicly traded company because
that is, that is literally, thatis literally the prospect.
I mean Debbie[inaudible] is inthe process of filing an IPO,
right.
That is the track that CAA andUTA are sort of, I'm that
problem in commercials where yousee a is the advertising agency
for Coca-Cola.
(10:39):
They make a nonunion spot forKogan calls everyone in the spot
except for their celebrity thatthey put in.
That spot is getting[inaudible]union.
But that guy gets paid and it's,it's crazy.
Like you're eating yourself up.
I'm like, you're hiring on uniontalent, subverting all your
other people.
It's crazy cause they make moreoff coke, you know?
Speaker 6 (10:59):
No, it's crazy.
I mean, I think that's kind ofthe, to me even bigger problem
than packaging views and packagereviews are a problem.
But this issue of like, oh wellwe'll just put up a wall and
we'll pretend that we aren'treally owned by the same
company.
I mean it's like that's a joke.
To be fair.
They're all
Speaker 5 (11:16):
the scissor like clearer.
Yeah.
They have different[inaudible]streets in century city
[inaudible] wise you have, youhave to wait for a light to
change.
You have to cross a crosswalk.
It's, it's pretty divorced[inaudible] system and it rains
five days and you don't, yeah.
You never know when you're ready.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I heard this interesting fact last night that
if there, there's a 50 50 splitbetween Labor and capital.
So you get the workers and theinvestors and the management,
then everybody's happy.
You know, the middle classsurvives, you get paid all that
stuff.
But now the, the split inAmerica is 60 40 and in favor of
(11:58):
capital.
And so, you know, stock marketthinks the economy is doing
great because the stock marketis doing well when people have
to have three jobs.
Just to get by and we are actorsand writers are affected by
this.
We are not, you know, our workhas gone drastically down.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Why there was a, a, we had a, we had a big uh,
membership meeting today andthere was a gentlemen, uh, uh, I
hope he won't mind me sayingthis, a little bit of an older
gentleman who's been in theguild for, I think it was he
looking at me when you say thatlooking around the room.
I looked, yeah, I would read itcause I don't want to, I don't
want to look in a mirror.
And I said this guy, this guy,um, I think you said he'd been
in the guild for 30 plus yearsand he gave his quote for what
(12:35):
he was being paid at.
What kind of a producer did hesay he was an s?
Was he a superhero hoe?
Supervising producer, which isan old title, I think.
Right.
But the point is, he's, he gavehis quote at that position 30
years ago and somebody who isabove that level today is only
making$1,000 more per week orper year or per episode or per
(12:56):
week, per episode.
I mean that's over 30 years.
That is the stagnation of wages
Speaker 4 (13:01):
and across the industry since the 70s yeah.
Every industry is a stagnatedway.
Speaker 6 (13:05):
I'm sorry, I think that goes crazy.
I was going to say that, thatthe guild put together a list of
median quotes for the differentlevels of TV writers and I was
making for, for supervisingproducer.
I was making the same quotethat's in that median 17 years
ago.
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Yeah.
And then with the new streamingcoming in, they don't even deal
with quotes, you know?
Right.
Like you, you can, you have aquote for a weekly show on
broadcast and they're like, no,we're just going to pay your
1300 bucks.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
You know?
So it's a very strange economywe're living in.
What was the, so you were so[inaudible]
Speaker 5 (13:41):
the packaging and then there was the packaging
fees, agony fees, packaging.
Packaging is good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Two fees and then you weresaying there was something else.
Affiliate production[inaudible]productions.
Yeah.
So affiliate production is justbasically when agencies own
production companies, which youknow, packaging fees is kind of
the big sexy issue right nowbecause it has been so
entrenched for many, many yearsand even decades.
(14:03):
Affiliate production is kind ofthe looming threat on the
horizon, although it's already,it's already here.
Three of the three of the bigfour agencies already have
production companies.
WME has endeavor contents, cahas whip, UTA has civic center
media.
Um, and it's, it's just, it's avery, I mean on the one hand we
like having more buyers in thelandscape and we don't want to
(14:23):
discourage that.
But it's a very, very, veryscary proposition to say to a
writer that your agent is goingto be your boss.
And that seems to be where we'reheaded, especially when all of
those same agencies are in theprocess of becoming publicly on
companies.
That is a, that is a conflictthat I just cannot even begin to
wrap my head around.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
So how isn't this a conflict of interest?
It is, but it's not anenforceable in any way.
It's more like an honorablething that people shouldn't,
well that's what the lawsuit isabout.
So the lawsuit alleges thatthey're violating their
fiduciary duty.
So the state of California saysyou have agencies have a
fiduciary duty and this allegesthat they're violating.
Okay.
So
Speaker 2 (15:02):
it's a conflict of interest.
Right.
We have sort of the same problem, um, when you were talking
about the Trump administration,because with ficor it's, it's a
massive problem in our union.
And when you go to Washington dc You know, it's on the bucks
international law, they don'twant to touch it.
Hey, you know, the Trumpadministration, in fact, they'd
love to be there and break youup.
You know, so I can understandthat.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Hi, it's Jack leading producer of the union working
podcast and partner at podcastsage as an awarded audio producer
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I've been inundated withrequests by peers and major
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(15:49):
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(16:12):
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Call me at(818) 233-0640 orshoot me an email at jacket
podcast, sage.com mentioned youand your working and get a 10%
(16:32):
discount.
Hell, I'll make it
Speaker 1 (16:34):
t
Speaker 3 (16:35):
and now back to union working
Speaker 1 (16:38):
[inaudible]
Speaker 5 (16:39):
by the way, on a on a slightly different, it's also
worth noting that that a similarbattle was fought not too long
ago in sports where sports,specifically Kareem Abdul Jabbar
took on his own agent oversimilar conflicts of interest
and they were able tosuccessfully implement a code of
conduct, much of which thewriters guild model gets own
code of conduct on and that codeof conduct that applies to
(17:01):
sports agents applies to all ofthe sports agents at CAA.
So the next time you hear onany, wherever it might be an
interview with Ari Emanuel orJay sures or anybody who runs
these agencies and they talkabout how writers are throwing
the industry into chaos andasking for just such an
unreasonable thing, it's worthtaking a pause and asking if
(17:23):
it's so unreasonable.
How is it that this same code ofconduct is already a clickable
to CAA sports agents?
Why shouldn't the same fiduciaryand ethical standards apply to
Aaron Sorkin's agent thatalready apply to Lebron James?
Speaker 6 (17:39):
Well, I think you guys aren't as good as shape as
the athletes.
I mean, you're a fit guy.
We have to write[inaudible]finish.
That's right.
More sports movies.
That's it.
That's right.
I'd put you up to Lebronanytime.
Yeah.
I just, I just don't want to bethere.
If you do,
Speaker 7 (17:57):
you guys Ra and all those guys, they're making
millions of dollars off of thisstuff.
They're being taken care of sothat they can explore.
You just bought a nice new housein south willy and to me it has
a lot of stuff.
Well he's not gonna live thereyear round though, so it's not
right.
(18:17):
So you have elections coming uplike we do.
Can you give us some backgroundabout that?
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Yeah.
So there's a, when we went out,when we took a vote back in
April or March, actually, youknow, whether we wanted to
support this action in 95.3% ofthe membership voted in favor.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
All right, so you, so how many members do you have?
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Oh God, do we 15,000 I think we have 15,000 total
total number of people vote.
Is that delegates 9,000.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Was that number before coming to this podcast?
But I believe it's 9,000.
Speaker 7 (18:56):
Well you had like 7,000 on on the day that you
guys were gonna, you know, fireyour agents.
7,000 writers fired there, right?
Yes.
Yes.
That's incredible.
That's like half the year.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
It was, it was an overwhelming show of solidarity,
which just goes to show you how,how deep the frustration.
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
And I wanted to touch on that because it seemed like
you guys did it.
It was so well organized as youguys roll it out.
And even like, I watched thevideos to get the updates and
it's there.
So well done.
But how long ago did that startto get that ball rolling?
It seemed like, I mean, you guyshad the lots, you had the
verbiage down in what you weregoing to say.
It seemed like it was so wellput together.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
I think, uh, well first of all, I think we have
tremendous leadership.
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
Right now.
I mean, you know, so you thinkDavid Goodman, he's a good man.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
I would walk [inaudible] I see what you did.
He's not a writer.
I would walk through fire forDavid.
Good.
Oh, that's pretty amazing.
Pretty amazing.
That's great.
And
Speaker 5 (19:55):
honestly, I feel so lucky and fortunate to have the
uh, the, the leadership in thatwe do right now.
It's not always the case.
Leaderships come and go.
Some are better than others.
The leadership that we have inplace right now from, from John
August and Michelle Mulroney onthe feature side to David
Goodman to David Young are ourchief negotiator is just, I
(20:15):
mean, I, every meeting I go to,I come away just more and more
impressed with, with thestrategy and the way they think
through every singlepossibility.
And then, uh, there's been atremendous effort in terms of
just grassroots organizing amongthe membership.
We have a captain system that'svery robust.
Harry and I are both captains.
The, the membership of thewriters guild is more in touch
(20:37):
with each other andcommunicating amongst each
other.
Uh, I think in a way that isprobably[inaudible].
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Yeah.
Can you talk about the captainsystem with, what does that mean
for people that don't know?
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Yeah, it's just an organizing system
Speaker 7 (20:48):
we have in place, you know, for strike, you know,
authorizations for differentactions that the union has taken
where there's just people whothe captains reach out.
We are literally make sure thatevery, every writer is on a
team.
So basically you're kind ofassigned to a captain and that
captain communicates with you,make sure you know everything,
(21:10):
you've kind of maintainedcommunication, talk to people
about what's going on, keep themupdated, get them out, get them
out to vote.
You know, we're working on a getout the vote campaign now like,
so it's, it's, it's been reallyamazing.
The, the, the other thing that Ithink has been really heartening
and pretty incredible is that,you know, we decided as a group
(21:32):
to fire our agents right duringstaffing season for, for
networks.
And so there was a lot ofanxiety about how, what was I
going to look like?
Right.
And people stepped up to helpeach other out and just it,
there was a grassroots kind ofmovement that, that happened on
Twitter where people starteddoing Saul, they'd call it WJ
(21:53):
solidarity challenge, wherepeople were offering to read
each other's scripts andrecommend each other to show
runners.
And then people were reading,you know, assistants and other
people and, um, people werereading scripts and doing a
staffing boost and shouting out.
But the WGA itself also createdthis staffing portal online.
(22:14):
Yeah.
And it was so as a show runner,you could go on, people could
submit themselves to the showand submit their material.
And so the showrunners could goon and say, Oh, I'm looking for
this kind of writer whospecialize in this kind of
thing.
And so it really was this justwriters showing up for other
(22:34):
writers and it was incredible towatch and it was incredible to
see the guilt, you know, putthat together, you know?
So we don't have that.
No, we don't have captains or no[inaudible] sounds great.
How many keepers[inaudible]captains or doesn't work good
calls around.
Right?
It's different.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
Kind of came from that cause it was kind of, it
came from the strike captainsand it just, we decided to keep
that structure in place.
Did our captain systemoriginated with the last NBA
negotiation or did it predatethat it goes as far back as 2007
because it went back to the 2007strike.
We had captains in the, yeah, inthat strike and then it kept
(23:12):
going in the last round.
So,
Speaker 7 (23:15):
and so you guys had that strike was about DVDs and
share of social media and allthat stuff.
The Internet that strikes at theInternet and successful.
You're welcome by the way.
[inaudible] yeah.
So it was successful for youguys?
Oh, I would argue the strike was2007 strike.
I would argue that that strikewas an overwhelming success.
There's been a little bit of afalse narrative that has been
(23:36):
allowed to take root afterwardsbecause, well, there are a
couple of things.
The, the movie business was inthe process of constructing.
We had the recession
Speaker 5 (23:46):
and the DVD market fell out, none of which was the
fault of, uh, the writer'sstrike.
You know, correlation does notequal causation, but what that
strike got us so important wasjurisdiction over the Internet.
And Yeah, at the time theposition of the amp PTP was, uh,
we'll figure out the internet.
[inaudible]
Speaker 7 (24:05):
yeah.
We don't know what is[inaudible]yeah,
Speaker 5 (24:10):
we are, I think, don't quote me on this, but tell
me if I'm wrong.
I believe it's 50% of writersright now are getting their
primary income from eitherNetflix, Amazon, or one of the
other big streamers.
Is that correct?
It's, it's, it's massive ifthat, if that, I might be
overstating that statistic, butit's, it's massive.
(24:31):
So that alone jurisdiction overthe Internet, which our sister
guilds also got beginningpattern bargaining in my mind, I
would argue that that alone madethat strike a huge success.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
Yeah.
We definitely have Fox andDisney everyday that that
negotiation was not good for usbecause that write up, you guys
finished, the economy went andthen we had money and we
couldn't do, but we couldn't doanymore.
It's like, no, just keepworking, just keep working.
We're all losing our prices.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
And look, we, you know, we, we would have hoped
for a better deal.
We would have hoped for betterstreaming residuals.
That's another battle we have tofight.
But you know, it, I think thedeal that we got was pretty
good.
And you know, it doesn't helpmatters when you have, you know,
in that case, the DGA going in,you know, in the middle of
basically in effect crossing thepicket line and going in and
negotiating a side deal while asister union is out striking.
(25:24):
So all things considered withthe amount of force and pressure
that was on the writer's guildand the fact that many times,
historically, these battles seemto have to be fought by the WJ
alone.
I think history will rememberthat straight.
Speaker 7 (25:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's uh, so what do youguys see in the future coming
out?
Like we end with the streamingplatforms.
Um, do you guys have problemswith advanced residuals?
Do you guys deal with that atall?
Cause that's one of our biggestproblems that you guys have
residuals.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
They have, we have a realproblem with that.
They, they, yeah, they tell you,oh you have to say it up front
(25:59):
and say, Hey, you know what?
We're going to give you thismuch money.
But they don't tell your agentthat part of that was advanced
residuals.
You're not really making thatkind of money.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
It was under the impression that the buyouts were
to erase backend.
Am I, am I, cause there are,there are, at least for writers,
I don't know, maybe it's adifferent thing with sag.
If you have a movie on, onNetflix, you get residuals,
right?
I mean there's a residualformula for that.
The buyouts, you know, you'll,you'll, you'll read about like,
you know, monster deals in thetrades where Netflix spies out,
(26:27):
somebody's back ends.
They don't want to, they don'twant to pay out backend.
Right.
And that's, that's a, that's alittle nebulous and I don't, I
haven't had that high classproblem yet in my career, so I
don't know exactly how,
Speaker 7 (26:36):
no, no, I don't, we don't have the advanced
residuals.
Yeah.
That I know of.
No problem for us.
Yeah.
And so what's
Speaker 4 (26:44):
going on with like Netflix doing 750 pilots last
year, a thousand pilots thisyear.
And what is that like?
And you guys, you know, firedall of your talent agencies.
How does that affect youremployment?
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Yeah.
I mean, the same number ofwriters are, are working in the
same, the jobs are gettingfilled.
So it's not as though we're notworking.
I do think the action probablyaffects some of us more than
effects others.
I think lower-level futurewriters are probably at a little
bit of a disadvantage duringthis action.
But overall, as a group, youknow, we're all working at the
(27:17):
same amount, right.
So I don't know that it's made adifference or how to, huge
effect.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
And You created that to, uh, you were talking about
you guys all got together, thestaffing stuff, having it at
your union, right?
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Yeah.
I mean the writers guild'sreally put out open writing
assignments, you know, connectedthe, the show runners to the
different, to act to writers.
So yeah, it's, it's actuallybeen pretty amazing.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
And you know, the, I think the bottom line kind of is
business like life finds a way,you know, you take out the
middlemen, you know, show stillneed to be staffed and right.
Buyers need content and writershave things to sell.
I mean, you know, there, thereare a number of ways that I
think the agencies kind ofunderestimated us in this
process.
And that's one of them.
You know, we have real valuecollectively.
(28:06):
Um, the entire business that isnow a$56 billion in operating
profit business is dependentupon the content that writers
create that need does not goaway just because agents are
suddenly not employed anymore.
So, right.
Or preceded the agent.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
So did you have close relationships with your agents?
You'd been with them a longtime.
How did they respond to this?
The individual's not there.
The think it depended on, itdepended on, yes.
Who Your agent was and where areyou?
Right.
Your agent was, my agent wasfantastic.
Like I actually left CAA, I wasat ca for 15 years or something
(28:44):
and I left ca for capitalinstaller a few years ago, which
was the best career move I made.
Um, just being at a smallerboutique led agency has been
just my career.
Went through the roof.
She was fantastic.
I mean she literally when I, Ireached out to her cause we as a
group decided that we were allgonna sign letters through the
(29:06):
WGA so that we were going tofire them through like a form
letter that went out through theWGA.
But I emailed my agent in personand said, hey see you on the
other side.
Love you sticking with my union.
But you know, and she wrote backand said, okay, you know, I
totally understand.
Make sure you sign the formletter through your, through the
union.
(29:26):
Like, she really, she didn'twant me to get in trouble with
my union.
You know what I mean?
That's great.
Um, but I know some peopledidn't have that experience.
I think, you know, WMA clientsdidn't.
So, um, you've, I knew andyou've got
Speaker 5 (29:42):
a deals done with most of the boutique agencies.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
No, right?
I mean, yeah.
Caplin staller signed a coupleof weeks ago, um,
Speaker 5 (29:51):
buckwild sign for science,
Speaker 6 (29:54):
right?
Yeah.
There was a, another sort of midtier agency that was in
negotiations apparently lastweek.
But when, oh, going back to yourquestion about the election.
So there is a group of, ofpeople who are running in
opposition to current leadershipright now.
So when those people announcedtheir candidacy, that
negotiation apparently fellapart.
(30:15):
So, yeah.
So we do have an election comingup at the end of the month.
There's a group of slate ofcandidates who, you know, as far
as I can tell, they're just,they just want to get back to
the negotiating table, theirposition.
You know, I, I, I hope thatthey'll be more specific about
what they're, I'm trying to bevery difficult with that.
I have a platform that you can,you can turn right now, platform
(30:38):
is get back to the table.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
Hmm.
But then specifically theirplatform is get back to the
table with the ATA.
Right.
Because we're at the table.
We never left the table.
Um, what we did leave was weleft the table that had the
association of talent agencies.
Um, and we've been, we've beennegotiating with agencies
individually ever since.
Um, oh yeah.
They're their platform.
Me, I think if I'm trying to beas fair as I possibly can, I
(31:03):
think their platform is, we needto be negotiating with the ATA
again, which frankly doesn'tmake any sense to me from
everything that I've read, fromall the statements they've put
out from all the social mediaposts that they've made, it just
seems to me that they have anunrealistic sense that if they
sit down at a table with RMannual, somehow they will
(31:23):
magically be able to get him toact fairly.
Right.
Where David Goodman and DavidYoung could not, which again, I
say this with all due respect,just strikes me as unrealistic
expectations at best and magicalthinking at worst.
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
I believe there's some sort of revenue sharing
agreement that we can come to.
That's right.
That magically none of us havethought of yet.
That, you know, will be theanswer to this, this whole
thing.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
But they won't tell us what it is.
They will tell us what it is.
So that's the magic in it.
That's right.
We don't have a good agreementwith ATA.
Right?
That's right.
You guys don't have a friend.
No, we don't.
We haven't for years.
Right.
Sucks.
All right, well we gotta wind uphere.
Culver City is closing, so wegotta get Outta here.
Thank you again to Terry Cop,Nick Mariani, WGA.
(32:13):
Thanks for having us.
Yeah.
What, I mean, members need toget together and talk about this
stuff and we should entertainthe union should be working.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Yeah, that's right.
And we, uh, I think, I think allof us would very much like to
see a future where, where theWGA and sag are collectively
bargaining together on some ofthese things.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Well, this is a surprise.
I was saving too to the end.
We are not actors anymore.
We're going to be writers.
So I got a script outside.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Uh, all right, so follow us at union working on
Facebook and our website at[inaudible] Dot Com oh and we
need to thank the people whomake this possible podcast.
I guess they didn't have awriter writing that from me.
I just was winging it.
Thank you guys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I hope you all enjoyed thisfirst installment of the union
working podcast.
Make sure to download the nextepisode.
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