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UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
Here’s the joint WGA East and West email that went out to members just now intended to shame those weasels who went fi-core during the 2007-2008 writers strike. The WGA East roster consists of Pricilla Kay Alden, James Harmon Brown, Michael Conforti, Victor Gialanella, Josh Griffith, Frances Meyers, Pete T. Rich. The WGA West roster is: Maria Arena, Marlene Poulter Clark, John F Cosgrove, Paula F Cwikly, Clem Egan, Barbara J Esensten, Jeanne M Grunwell, Dena Higley, Mark Christopher Higley, Meg Kelly, Michelle Poteet Lisanti, Terry A Meurer, Shawn Morrison, James E Reilly, John Ridley, Hogan Sheffer, John F Smith, Darrell R Thomas Jr, Gary Tomlin, Janine A Vogelaar, Garin Wolf. (FYI, George Clooney went fi-core long before the strike…) To the union’s credit, this is a very small number, showing the incredible solidarity of the writers up against Big Media. The fractious membership of the Screen Actors Guild would do well to remember the lessons learned, good and bad, during the difficult WGA contract negotiations.
April 18, 2008
Dear Fellow Members of the Writers Guilds, East and West:During our 100-day strike, the extraordinary solidarity you demonstrated on the picket lines and the courage and dedication with which you committed yourselves to our cause were not only an inspiration but also the key to making our actions successful.
In the face of enormous personal and financial hardship on the part of many, you sacrificed in the knowledge that your refusal to work would reap benefits not only for yourselves but countless others in the creative community, now and in the future. Your stalwart resolve paid off.
Yet among the many there were a puny few who chose to do otherwise, who consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good. Extreme exceptions to the rule, perhaps, but this handful of members who went financial core, resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of a union contract, must be held at arm.s length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are — strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk.
While others forfeited paychecks to stand in unity with their fellow Guild members, many who went financial core continued to collect salaries. Without concern for their colleagues, they turned their backs and tossed the burden of collective action onto the rest of us, taking jobs, reducing our leverage and damaging the Guilds for their own advantage.
Even in cases of deep financial distress, there were other options, including generous no-interest loans from our strike funds, which would have sustained them until the end of the strike and beyond. That’s what unions are for.
Those who went financial core did not share in the adversity; and should not share in our victory. They cannot vote in our elections, run for Guild office, attend Guild meetings and other events, or participate in the Writers Guild Awards. Further, it has been determined by the National Council of the Guilds West and East, and affirmed by Guild East Council and the Guild West Board, that we send this joint letter with a link to a list on respective websites of those who went financial core during the strike. To view it now and for future reference, you can find it here.
The rest of us are all in this together.
Sincerely,
Michael Winship
President, WGAEPatric M. Verrone
President, WGAW
—
Writers Guild of America, East Members
Who Became Financial Core Members
During The Strike of 2007-2008Pricilla Kay Alden
James Harmon Brown
Michael Conforti
Victor Gialanella
Josh Griffith
Frances Meyers
Pete T. Rich
—
Writers Guild WestArena, Maria
Clark, Marlene Poulter
Cosgrove, John F.
Cwikly, Paula F.
Egan, Clem
Esensten, Barbara J.
Grunwell, Jeanne M.
Higley, Dena
Higley, Mark Christopher
Kelly, Meg
Lisanti, Michelle Poteet
Meurer, Terry A.
Morrison, Shawn
Reilly, James E
Ridley, John
Sheffer, Hogan
Smith, John F.
Thomas, Darrell R. Jr.
Tomlin, Gary
Vogelaar, Janine A.
Wolf, Garin
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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What a refreshing change of pace — a union blacklisting its own members. And in a way that guarantees the WGA will get sued… so that our union dues will pay for legal defense. Please, someone get this idiot out of office.
Puny few?
Why Patric Verrone speak like Hulk?
This is not how the WGA should behave. I am not proud to see this done in my name.
And thus begins the new blacklist.
These people had a legal right to do what they did.
It may be reprehensible to other members, but it was totally legal. And now the Writers Guild, whose members suffered greatly for their decisions to join totally legal organizations in the 30s and 40s has decided to publish a list of names of members who went fi-core.
I loath what they did, but it was totally legal.
The WGA should never, EVER be in the position of trying to create lists of names of people who did something the majority abhors.
It was so easy for America to turn on the writers who went red.
It would be frighteningly as easy to turn on Jewish writers, or black writers.
Because today we began with fi-core writers.
What the WGA just did is illegal I believe.
Great job, guys.
So who wrote this – Verrone or Zucker? Nice.
Is it obvious to everyone now how this stupid game works?
“UG – BIG CORPORATE GIANT EVIL. UG. WORKING CLASS STEEL-WORKER/WRITER GOOD. UG. YOU ARE EITHER FOR US OR AGAINST US. UG.”
I am putting my real name on this comment so that everyone who reads it, particularly those who are listed above, will know that, despite the fact that I am an active member of the WGA, this letter was NOT sent in my name. The people who wrote, approved and distributed it do NOT speak for me and, frankly, I find it shameful, petty, humiliating to this union, and the epitome of hypocrisy that a union that has prided itself for half a century on the fact that ten of its members went to jail because they would not name names, found it necessary and appropriate to NAME NAMES. Shame on you, Patric Verrone.
“must be held at arm.s length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are” — you’ve got to be kidding me. That’s blacklisting, kids. It’s evil no matter who does it.
Why is everyone so damn sue happy in this city? As for “black listing” … PUH LEEZE.
That’s not black listing, that is FACT listing.
I don’t think Verrone had to give them a verbal spanking though.
All he had to do was list their names.
As a WGA member who stayed the course, I have to admit, I DID want their names. So I can make sure never to associate with them.
I think it’s interesting that most of these writers work on soaps. I think if someone does a little digging they might find a story here. Shame on the Guild for listing names.
For those crowing that what the WGA did was illegal, please, get real. These people are members of the Guild. When they joined, they agreed to certain policies about publication of membership lists. Going Fi-Core is a publishable Guild activity, just as the Guild publishes a yearly list of new members, or a list of diverse members. Why should these people be allowed to do what they did in secret and get away with it?
Additionally, looking them up in the Studio System & on the IMDB, it’s clear that many of these writers wrote for daytime soap operas… but a good half of them have aren’t listed and have no prior credits, meaning that they were probably Scab hires in the first place.
Everyone knew going into this strike that Soaps were going to get hit hard, and I feel bad for those who legitimately thought their jobs would disappear… but a lot of their fellow writers did go out on strike and are still fighting to get their jobs back, so I don’t feel too bad for them.
The person on this list who stands out like a pulsating, festering wound is the scabtastic John Ridley, the only screenwriter who went fi-core during the strike, hoping to get extra jobs. The only one out of thousands. The only one who openly bragged about it on his blog. And on Cable TV News Programs. Advertising his services as a scab for hire while thousands of his fellow members were forgoing well-paying jobs and walking the line. Well, now that the strike is over, hopefully people will see John Ridley for what he is: a leech who sucks Guild benefits without the responsibility to pay his Guild dues.
And if no one wants to hire a leech, well, I’m not going to cry over that, either.
Way to lose the moral high ground. This makes the guild leadership look moronic. Very disappointing.
Yeah!!!
Don’t let these scabs benefit from the amazing new life changing contract that was so obviously and completely worth all the lost product, jobs and money!!! Or… umm… wait… maybe these people should be rewarded for being right all along?
Wow, what self-aggrandizement and hysteria to compare a list of fi-cores to the red baiting blacklists. Hardly the same thing. You can’t turn your back on an organization that benefited you and got you to wherever you are when the chips are down and the longterm collective well being is dependent on unity.
Clooney’s a whiny self-involved fink.
I hope to join the WGA soon and was 120% on their side during the strike.
But I think it’s rather silly to single out a few people who went fi-core when the whole Guild, really, is culpable for the current state of affairs. First an overwhelming majority of them voted for a strike. Then, an overwhelming majority of them voted for a shitty deal. Am I the only one having flashbacks to the re-election of Bush in 2004?
I’m not on the “blame Verrone first” bus, either. He truly wanted to make major inroads on behalf of his fellow writers, and I’m not sure anyone else could really have done a better job — at the end of the day, a brick wall is a brick wall. (I’m not so thrilled that he’s calling the results a “victory,” but that’s just what politicians do.)
Yes, the WGA’s action is probably illegal (remember John Henry Faulk vs AWARE, Inc? Faulk won), however satisfying. Now what about us reality writers who picketed, didn’t go fi-core, and turned down work only to be abandoned by our own Guild negotiators as a strategy to settle with the AMPTP. WHere do we get to list their names?
Propagandist is right. There is a fine line between laws and respect.
A lot of you forgot that the WGA was forced to go on strike because of massive rollbacks in almost all areas of contract coverage. The only place where there weren’t any rollbacks was in new media because the old contract didn’t cover that issue. What you guys earned was massive gains in new media and no rollbacks at all. That is despite what others say including Trey Parker and Matt Stone. As for those who went fi-core, they deserve to be blacklisted because they disobeyed guild laws. I have no sympathy for any one of those blacklisted people especially John Ridley.
As for George Clooney, the only reason why he isn’t on this list is because he might have not been a WGA member at the time of his actions. Regardless, he will being blacklisted due to poor box office performance.
What our elected leaders did was absolutely right and proper. On my show, having supported our 2007-2008 negotiations will be a condition of employment.
Geez people– blacklist, is it? Would one of you Lemmings of secrecy please open a book? The blacklisting to which you refer was based on speculation and a false unsubstantiated threat of communism’s proliferation.
This list on the other hand is a factual list of those who sat down wrote and sent a certified letter to the WGA asserting they would be working as scabs during the strike.
Some of you are so misguided with your soft “Politically Correct” treatment of those who practice morally wrong behavior that you have adopted the idea that the messenger is the one who should be killed. I’m not sure when accountability fell out of fashion. But I say bring it back. Create a world where your children can thrive, and stop trying to erase the standards of right vs. wrong.
Let’s hold morally corrupt people accountable. Otherwise this place is gonna start looking like that morally corrupt place, Hollywood. Oh wait…
Dear Patric:
I’m a Guild member who supported the strike. And honored it. I literally did not write a word, not on two assignments nor anything on spec.
Yet, I was stunned to read your email. Stunned, embarrassed, even nauseated.
Identifying those who went fi-core, two months after the strike was over, was petty and vindictive.
It is, to me, the equivalent of a public lynching. It smacks of McCarthyism.
If someone wants to be a writer in Hollywood, they are required to join the Guild. It is not like joining a church or synagogue or even a political party which you do of your own free will. People do not have to believe in the principles of the Guild if they don’t want to. If they do, yes, that makes the Guild stronger. But we should not require it of them.
The Guild is not a religion. We don’t take a blood oath.
The Guild provides fi-core as an option. If someone chooses it, that’s their business. By posting a link to their names you have now created a new Hollywood Blacklist.
Bravo.
No wait, shame on you.
Clooney went fi-core prior to the strike.
I didn’t know Guilds published black lists, I always thought they kept them posted on the bathroom wall.
The WGA should be ashamed of itself writing that memo/letter. People did what they did to survive and get through a tough time, when did it become a crime to dis-agree with management?
They’re still members just withholding part of their dues as they saw appropriate.
I, too, was pretty surprised about seeing this e-mail (good point about using your real name, Valerie – I am also a WGA member). I’m sure there’s some legal reason why it could be done, I’m sure there are a number of reasons why it was done, but it did take me by surprise – which I’m sure was the point – as they hope to warn people off from doing it in the future.
That said, I was under the impression that going financial core was a legitimate – at least legally speaking – method of paying fewer dues in order to alleviate financial hardship. Obviously, these people are being publicly shamed for going fi-core during the strike, but should someone go fi-core today or next week or next month, I doubt they’d warrant an angry e-mail drop to the membership.
Which suggests a generalization was made about every person on the list having gone fi-core in a way to spite the Guild (thereby inviting an equally spiteful blowback) and there’s something about broad generalizations resulting in public shaming that gives me pause.
As I said, I was surprised.
Where in the BA does it say fi-core is punishable? I thought I knew the contract, perhaps I am missing a paragraph.
Fi-core is an option, you’re a basic member and may be looked at as 2nd class but to publish such a list is to encourage a class system that guilds were supposed to end.
You self-righteous WGA zealots make me sick. The more you crow and preen and condemn the more tempted I am to go fi-core just to disassociate myself from you losers.