WGA: Support For Elias Davis By Bowman

COMMENTS (7)

• I don’t know what’s more irritating, the way you bungled the strike and left us with NOTHING for all our unity, hard work, and historic leverage, which you egregiously squandered….or the spectacle of you now taking victory laps.

  Comment by StickingWithMyUnion — Sunday August 23, 2009 @ 11:17pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Sorry to interrupt but not only was SAG supportive of the WGA Strike. There were some AFTRA people out there also with AFTRA Shirts on and Posters in support of the WGA’s Strike and they also signed your Report Sheets. I saw some at Disney, Paramount, CBS also for the big rally that took place on Hollywood Blvd when the Teamster’s Leadership spoke.

  This strife need to stop!

  Comment by Oneleftout — Monday August 24, 2009 @ 2:31am PDT  Reply to this post

• I don’t know about you, “stickingwithmyunion” but I’ve actually gotten checks for my work running on the internet thanks to the strike. No, it’s not a lot, but that’s because the phenomenon of broadcast shows airing on the net is in it’s infancy. But it is the future, and now we have our fingers in the till thanks to the leadership. John Wells would have given that up and ten years from now when most shows will be on the net, we’d be getting nothing.

  Comment by Old hack — Monday August 24, 2009 @ 12:10pm PDT  Reply to this post

• If you are, as you claim, an “Old hack,” then you were around in 2001 when John Wells effectively used the threat of a strike, without actually going on strike, to get an Internet residual rate of 1.2% of 100% (the best residual rate we’ve ever gotten for reuse), as well as healthcare banking and increased foreign levies. These were enormous gains.

  In late 2005, I sent a detailed email to Patric Verrone and John McLean explaining how we could effectively use the threat of litigation to get that formula applied to every sell-through on the Internet by getting all electronic delivery defined as a “rental” not a sale.

  The gist of my email was that the studios wouldn’t want it called a sale because that term, under the Uniform Commercial Code, carries with it certain rights for the buyer (such as the right to re-sell) that they were very scared of, and caught between the rock of our rental formula and the hard place of “selling” their materials electronically, I believe that they would have chosen our formula. If not, we could have gone to court to have the matter settled and if we still lost, then made it a negotiating issue.

  I got an email reply from Patric Verrone that said: “Thanks. That’s interesting.”
  And that was the end of it.

  Patric Verrone had in his hands in 2005 a viable strategy for getting the 1.2% of 100% formula applied to all work delivered over the Internet, and he rejected it. Because he didn’t want to get you more money for your work, he wanted a strike.

  John Wells looks at the deal we want and figures out the fight we need to get it. Elias Davis and Patric Verrone look at he fight they want and hope the the deal we need will come out of it.

  Don’t believe me? Look at their history — the America’s Next Top Model strike, the product placement battle, the “Subservient Donald” video (for which they offered Guild membership as payment to the director who directed the video, then lied about it for two weeks once they got caught until the truth came out), the leafletting of American Idol auditions, including the ones in Puerto Rico…on our dime. And for what?

  There seem to be three candidates in this race — Elias Davis, John Wells and Not John Wells. I’d like to propose a fourth — Not Elias Davis. Having nothing to do with the strike, when Elias Davis was treasurer of our dues money, the WGA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with little input from the Board and almost none from membership on organizing campaigns that had absolutely no agenda other than disruption and chaos. We supported (yes, financially) the ANTM “writers” when they walked out — AFTER their writing services were already complete…for what? We sent Patric and others on a nice vacation to Puerto Rico to hand out flyers to the ten thousand people in line to audition for American Idol…for what? We made a video mocking Donald Trump, in his capacity as a member of another talent union, that we not only spent money on, but offered the director — who had never written anything and did not qualify under any of our criteria — free membership in our union…for what?

  And I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t invited to the $50,000 cocktail party at Shutters for reality show editors. I only know about it because a friend of mine, who was the clip-puller for Dancing with the Stars at the time, was. She gushed and gushed about how great the food was and the incredible open bar. Gee, that sounds like fun, but…for what?

  That party was the same week as the Guild Christmas Party, which I worked to organize and for which we had to fight for every last dime, finally settling on a limited buffet and each member getting one “drink ticket,” after which it would be a cash bar. And sorry, we can’t afford the hotel on the beach in Santa Monica. That’s reserved for people who primarily perform non-writing services, but thanks for asking.

  The Davis/Verrone camp has NOT been looking out for your financial interests for a long time. Otherwise, they wouldn’t so freely spend your dues money on matters that do not benefit you in any way. Which is why I am voting for Not Elias Davis — and I really hope he wins.

  Comment by Valerie Alexander — Tuesday August 25, 2009 @ 12:04pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Valerie Alexander’s 8/25 post should be required reading for all WGA members. It’s heartbreaking to say, but there is indeed something rotten at the core of our guild….and it’s only getting worse. (Look, for example, at the intellectually corrupt and self-interested way the guild’s new PAC is being run.) I have served on guild committees, donated money to guild causes, and given generously of my time to the WGA in countless other ways. But enough. Like many writers I know, I’m now thoroughly disgusted with how the leadership wastes our dues money on junkets and cocktail parties and comically misguided attempts to organize workers whose jobs constitute writing in no known sense of the word. I’m disgusted by bungled strikes and clueless, spineless negotiators, who then spin their failure as historic success. I’m disgusted by all the midgets we’ve been handed as our guild presidents–people who lie about their resumes, or who lack sufficient writing credits to join the WGA let alone run it, or who give golden parachutes to their friends when they are chased from guild employ….and all of this while our guild sits on hundreds of thousands of dollars in undistributed residuals. What a noble enterprise our beloved union once was. What a cesspool it has become. Wells, Davis, who the hell cares. The WGA needs a far more fundamental change than anyone is discussing.

  Comment by StickingWithMy Union — Tuesday August 25, 2009 @ 3:45pm PDT  Reply to this post

• StickingWithMy Union wrote “….What a noble enterprise our beloved union once was. What a cesspool it has become. Wells, Davis, who the hell cares. The WGA needs a far more fundamental change than anyone is discussing….”

  That’s been increasingly obvious and too many members are too comfortable choosing to be oblivious to that reality. What the Guild needs, and perhaps what the culture that Guild members create narrative for needs, is a strong-willed reform movement capable of navigating reality.

  Comment by Art Eisenson — Wednesday August 26, 2009 @ 4:46pm PDT  Reply to this post

• So Valerie is mad HER party didn’t have an open bar? That’s considered a good argument to ditch leadership that actually cared about writers as opposed to being a stooge for the studios? Did she consider the Guild doesn’t like to have open bars often as there’s a liability issue if someone gets loaded and drives home? Something more likely to happen at a holiday party, where people tend to celebrate a lot and let loose. Sorry making you pay for that second drink is so offensive.

  Those “reality”show editors who Valerie dismisses are very often the writers of the show. They come up with a storyline, define the footage to create characters and yes, often write dialogue that is fed to the talent. They are storytellers. They are writers. If you’re going to argue they’re not, start arguing Larry David is not a writer for his work on the very improvised “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Or the Michael Moore is not a writer for his docs. The term reality show is a term to convince viewers they are seeing reality. They are not. The term non-fiction is sometimes correct, but not usually as incredible fiction is being created by these writers.

  Also, competition shows are game shows, and have always been covered by the Guild. That is they were, until the era of Wells, when they were relabeled “reality shows” and left alone to prosper with no benefits for their writers, and many less jobs for WGA writers of traditional sitcoms and dramas, as having to pay Guild rates to them was much more expensive (not to mention SAG rates and DGA rates) and so less traditional shows are produced these days. Which means many less jobs. Thanks, Mr. Wells!

  Comment by Frankie Raye — Wednesday August 26, 2009 @ 11:36pm PDT  Reply to this post