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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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Why don’t you guys just go smash the offending parties’ windows, terrorize their families and burn down their houses? I’m sure it would make you feel better.
Boy do I hate unions, guilds, you name it. Let freedom — and the marketplace — reign.
Dear Writers Financial Core or Not;
You aren’t puny. Your Guild president is. I will not hold you at arm’s length. I will, however, flush any blacklist into the sewer.
Sincerely,
David Simkins
How exactly is publishing this list illegal?
And I don’t see it as a blacklist either, although I can’t blame people for not wanting to hire them. Even if this list didn’t come out in this manner, did any of those listed really think they’d be able to go fi-core and not have anyone find out about it?
So the Writers Guild of America is now producing lists of names, a blacklist by any other name, of writers who should be rejected by the writing community.
To quote from the New York Times obituary of blacklisted writer Ring Lardner, Jr. (written by Richard Severo on November 2, 2000):
“In 1947 Mr. Lardner was an unrepentant and fiercely outspoken witness when he was interrogated by the committee’s chairman, the famously aggressive J. Parnell Thomas, Republican of New Jersey. Mr. Lardner was, in fact, a Communist, but he refused to answer Thomas because he felt that his political leanings were none of the government’s business.
At one point Thomas demanded to know if Mr. Lardner was or ever had been a Communist. Mr. Lardner started to reply, then hesitated.
“It is a very simple question,” the congressman said sharply. “Anybody would be proud to answer it — any real American would be proud to answer the question, ‘Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
“I could answer the question exactly the way you want,” Mr. Lardner replied, “but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning.” An angry Thomas had him removed from the witness stand.
In late 1947, 20th Century-Fox, which had been paying Mr. Lardner $2,000 a week, announced that “his employment with the company has been terminated.” Two weeks after that, Mr. Lardner and the nine others who refused to answer were indicted and subsequently convicted of contempt of Congress.”
Years later, he ran into Bud Schulberg, a great writer but one who did name names even though he was in a strong enough position not to. According to the Times piece…
“One day, Mr. Lardner, accompanied by his wife, Miss Chaney, encountered Mr. Schulberg in a restaurant. Mrs. Lardner looked the other way because she did not want to talk to an informer. But Mr. Lardner took the hand of his old friend and co-worker and shook it. “I shake hands with anybody,” he said. “I don’t believe in blacklisting.”
If a class-act like Mr. Lardner could see the evil in blacklisting, even of those who did not support the cause its in greatest hour of need, how could the current leadership of the WGA not see it?
What they’ve done today is impugn the memory of the Hollywood Ten and every writer who suffered due to a blacklist.
Micah – and your credits include what exactly? Smells like you’re all too familiar with getting blacklisted per a simple Google search. You can’t possibly be a WGA member. If you are, then keep pointing fingers and perhaps they’ll wise up and stick you on that list instead. Now that would be moral high ground.
Consider the bit of respect I had left for my guild now gone. When Verrone’s term is up, I’m sure there’s a cult or a clique of 13 year old girls who will welcome him as their new leader.
My question is this; Is the full list of memberships available to all? If so, then Fi-Core should be listed just like any type of membership… openly. Perhaps it would have been more reasonable to print a list of all memberships. Let people hunt for the info they want.
Lastly, I believe most of these people are soap writers. It’s a dying genre. Don’t blacklist these people. Feel sorry for them. They alienated their fellow professionals for a job that very well might not be around next year.
The only thing this has taught me is that David Simkin’s picture on IMDB couldn’t be more ridiculous. “I’m loooooking at yooooooouuuu, tee heee heee!”
Some of the twerpy responses on this thread would make me embarrassed to even be in a Guild with such a**holes. Luckily, cooler heads prevail and I realize that a great number of “WGA members” writing here are probably pimply-faced kids who have never been to a pitch meeting in their lives. Dream on, you pathetic lilles struzes.
As a twenty-year member of the Guild, with a keen interest in history, I can GUARANTEE there are similarities between this and the blacklists of the 30s.
I think the Guild has an obligation to prevent any listing and associating of members in any way that they can be shunned by others.
The Hollywood Ten are spinning in their graves over this horrendous decision. I would only wish our leadership were attuned enough to hear them.
I’m not a WGA member, but, I’m in SAG and I walked that picket line in solidarity. This action is just wrong. It serves no purpose except to terrorize current and future members. It says, “this is what will happen to you if we think you disloyal”. Funny, in a liberal town, this is a very “Bush Administration” type tactic, and it’s really, really shameful. Wow. Now I wish I hadn’t picketed for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_core
Read it and understand that the WGA had no choice but to give ficore an option to its members. It was used heavily in the 80s to break unions.
There has to be a consequence of going ficore: A negative consequence.
If you truly believe there should be no consequences, if you truly believe that those who went ficore should not be punished, then work with those who turned their back on you. Let them and management know that their failure to support the WGA during the strike has no consequence…And see how the rank-and-file reacts to that.
I am still so revolted by this. But since we are all Hollywood writers here, let’s discuss this in movie metaphors.
When are Michael and Patrick going to gaze in the mirror at their weary, haggard faces, through bleary and bloodshot eyes and realize they have become everything they should be standing up against?
When are they going to look around with a dazed expression and mutter “What have I done?” as the enormity of their error overwhelm them?
When will the Warner Bros. cartoon train come out of nowhere and run them over?
Guys, you screwed up. Big time.
Apologize……
(that last one was Kevin Kline in “Fish Named Wanda”)
During the strike, these writers made a choice to go back to work. It was a choice that harmed their fellow writers who honored the work stoppage — especially soap writers (except for Ridley they all appear to be soaps people).
One consequence of these writers’ choice was good for them: they made money. But another consequence is that the truth is revealed, and everyone knows what they did. How their fellow writers view that action is an individual decision. My response? I find their conduct despicable, contemptible. I will never hire a fi-core writer.
Should the WGA have kept these writers’ names secret and protected them from _all_ the consequences of their choice? That seems unfair — the writers who went on strike suffered; why should the people who went fi-core be shielded?
The list of fi-core members is the truth. In revealing it, the WGA is providing valuable information to its membership. I thank them for it.
How many people had to “greenlight” the idea to publish this list? I am sick and tired of the WGA members being grouped together and slammed as if a vote went out last night to approve this list. Was this the actions of one or two people? Did the WGA board vote on this? This just seems very odd and petty. But maybe I’m just an idiot. Writer’s rule – but maybe the few people who rule the writers need to think before they hit the “send” button.
We’ve come a long way since the Hollywood Blacklist days, haven’t we? And like those days there were many people who wrote asking that their name not be on the script, but cashed the check just the same, re-wrote under assumed names, formed shell companies to sell their scripts, etc. etc. etc.
The difference between this list and the Blacklist of the 40s and 50s is simple: the original Blacklist is remembered for it’s heroic actions, this list can’t say that…
I wish, the WGA hadn’t made public such a list of people…instead I wish the WGA would’ve rooted out every lower-than-pond-scum writer who crossed a picket line, emailed in secret, or held behind closed meetings, all designed to undercut the WGA while they wrote and attempted to sell and write scripts-for-hire. Some of those people walked beside us on the line, while all the while stabbing us in the back with their secret actions. Some even attempted to take credit for settling the strike, even more never walked a foot of the picket line. What they share in common is one basic element: they took advantage of the WGA and all it offers writers, while all the while secretly serving their own narrow interests. Those people were and are scum. And I wouldn’t mind reading those names on some black list.
I don’t think this goes far enough.
Those who could have walked the line but didn’t broke guild rules and undermined us – let’s get their names up.
Those who voted against the strike undermined us – let’s get their names up.
Those producers and directors who kept producing and directing during the strike undermined us – let’s get their names.
I want more names, bigger lists, more careers destroyed.
Wait a second … You mean going Fi-Core means less dues paid? Gotta get my agent on the phone.
If you are truly appalled by this, LEAVE! Go ficore yourself!! See how well you do out there without the support and benefit of the union. Free market? Yea, look how well the LA real estate is doing in the free market. That is what happens when no one is looking to protect your interests.
Miss HarHar;
I know. That picture is ridiculously atrocious. But thanks for taking an interest. I couldn’t find Hardy HarHar on IMDB, however.
Sincerely,
David Simkins
THEY ARE SCABS.
They’re not being persecuted for an ideal, or religious, or political affiliation, or some suspicion as some of you seem to believe.
They are being listed as SCABS. Because they are SCABS.
Maybe some of you need a refresher course on what it is and means to cross a picket line– Why we were forced to set up picket lines.
The picket line is physical, but it stands as a representation of where the moral line is drawn in our fight for fair pay, fair benefits, and fair working conditions against inhumane corporations that would do away with us all together if they could.
And they would certainly do away with benefits, overtime, fair wages and the like without our Unions to back us. Look at the working conditions in the non-union world of reality TV. And in fact the Producers willingness to short change us in the early negotiations forced us to strike.
If you are morally corrupt enough to cross a picket line and work as a SCAB, thus pointing your middle finger at your union brothers and sister who throughout the Union’s history have fought for YOUR benefits, the benefits many take for granted including YOUR 40 hour work week, your overtime pay, your benefits, your safe working conditions and so on, I think that’s information worth publishing.
And I’m guessing from many of your less-than-clever pseudonyms on this comment board the majority of you who have embraced a “BLACKLIST!!!” argument are not in the WGA, have no vested interest in the negotiations or contract, and likely are in the 8th grade. If that’s the case your homework assignment is to research the Hollywood Blacklist of the late 40s and 50s and see what it was actually about. It’s not quite as simple as there was a list of names then, and here again we have a list of names.
What we have here is a list of the few who chose to be SCABS.
And shame on you that soil the names of those persecuted by McCarthyism by throwing them into this steaming pile of SCABS suggesting they are one in the same.
StrikeCaptain… there may be some question about the legality of this list, but your pledge to base employment decisions on strike support is definitely illegal.
I’m really shock by all of this. In the late 80′s a group of IA people went fi core to work all the non union stuff that was going on in town in those days. Never once did the IA published those names, in fact very few people knew who they were. You guys are just plain wrong in doing this.
hello! people who went fi core are NOT wga members… they are financial core nonmembers..
and considering these soap writers made it easier for studios to rationalize cutting staffs in half after the strike, I don’t feel bad.
As a WGA member, reading this letter made me deeply ashamed and sick with rage. This is one of the most smug, pompous, petty acts of vengeance I have ever seen.
The strike and contract talks were a business negotiation, not a moral crusade. In a business negotiation, it is customary for all involved parties to act in their own self interests — which is precisely what the striking writers did (including bullying others to shut up and blindly follow out of fear of just these sort of repercussions.)
Any moral high ground the writers had (and in my opinion, they didn’t have much) has been permanently forsaken.
As a showrunner and producer as well as WGA member, I will go out of my way to hire these wronged writers.
By publishing this list Mr Verrone gives tacit approvals to the concept and blacklisting in the McCarthy era. Which means, in his vernacular, If you ain’t with us, your against us.
Legal……..Schmegal.