Writers Guild West Announces 2012 Board Of Directors

COMMENTS (9)

• Astonishing, really, how few WGA members vote–look at the minuscule membership percentages required to win election to the board this time. It shows rather convincingly how hard Guild leaders have worked in recent years to piss off and disillusion the vast majority of the WGA electorate. And it shows as well how laughable it would be for these incoming board members to claim a mandate. So folks, congratulations on your election, now please stick to the core stuff that has been so egregiously ignored of late: enforcing the MBA, eliminating late pay and free rewrites, getting residuals faster to your members (it’s scandalous how long those checks take to wend their way through the maze at Third and Fairfax), etc. And please spend none of your time on WGA-paid junkets and cocktail parties and Oscar parties and laughably ineffective PACs. That’s the stuff that has irritated your members and made them disinclined to vote, as these results so vividly indicate.

  Comment by Francis — Saturday September 22, 2012 @ 9:41am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Francis: First of all, the small percentage of WGA members who vote, while disappointing, isn’t new. In fact, the voting level has been remarkably consistent over the years. So that number doesn’t show rather convincingly anything.

    Second, had you read the election booklet, you would have noted that the elected candidates share your concerns about “the core stuff” such as enforcement of the MBA, late pay, free rewrites, etc.

    Chip Johannessen, Katherine Fugate, David Goodman and Marjorie David are smart and dedicated writers who will work very hard to address these important issues. We are lucky to have them.

    Comment by Ashley Gable — Sunday September 23, 2012 @ 12:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • Ashley Gable:

      First, the low voting total may indeed not be a new phenomenon, but its continuation and, in my view, its calcification, reflects a widespread dissatisfaction with clueless Guild leadership, going back to the handling of the most recent strike, and particularly the shockingly poor deal that David Young et al negotiated to end it. Meanwhile, even as they don’t get us good deals going forward, Guild leaders are consistently unable to enforce even the few existing MBA provisions that are favorable to writers–on late pay, free rewrites, etc. We might as well not even have these hard-won provisions, as the studios egregiously violate them and the best the WGA can do in response is spend wads of membership money to commission high-priced consultants to poll writers on how we feel about being screwed. Most of the people I hang out with are WGA members, and every single person I can think of in that fairly large circle–whether they are liberal or conservative, new WGA members or Guild veterans, successful TV showrunners or newbie feature writers….every single one who comes to mind is scornful of Guild leadership, convinced things will never get better, and they don’t vote in Guild elections, even though I try to convince them how important their votes are. If you don’t know writers like that, well, I guess we travel in different circles. But as the vote totals from the most recent WGA election clearly show, the sour attitudes toward Guild leadership I’m describing here are hardly uncommon, even if you are blissfully unaware of them.

      Second point: Despite your snide insinuations, I did indeed read the election booklet, cover to cover, and yeah–I saw plenty of lip service about fixing these problems. We’ll see. Heard all this before.

      Comment by Francis — Sunday September 23, 2012 @ 2:27pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Really? Not one writer of color on the WGA Board of Directors? Not one? And the one white guy writer who did mention “diversity” and his desire to “level the playing field for women and minorities…” on writing staffs – doesn’t get elected. What decade is this?

  Comment by I'm Just Saying... — Saturday September 22, 2012 @ 9:42am PDT  Reply to this post

  • F off ‘i’m just saying…’.

    “Writers of color” (whatever that means) have MASSIVE advantages over white writers. All they have to do is have colored skin and they get on shows — ever hear of “diversity hires, dumbass?”

    It’s disgusting and racist, and so are you. People obsessed with race and the scum of the earth. If there’s a hell, be ready for it.

    Comment by Wendy — Saturday September 22, 2012 @ 12:47pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • You’re right, as a WGA voter I’m afraid I made the mistake of reading the candidate statements and then casting my ballot on the merits, with no thought of pigmentation. D’oh!

    Comment by PitifulPeacock — Saturday September 22, 2012 @ 2:27pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • First of, you’re wrong – several people who mentioned diversity on their candidate statements did get elected. Also, Alfredo Barrios is a writer of color and on the WGA board. So try actually getting it right.

    Second of all, there is real effort to try to get more writers of color to put themselves up for the board. Zoanne Clack, a lovely person and a writer/producer on Grey’s Anatomy, was originally going to run, and was announced as a candidate, but she and another candidate withdrew themselves from the election (not for any bad reasons). I’ve served on the Guild nominating committee and one of our biggest priorities is to try to get more writers of color involved and running for office. I

    Comment by I'm just saying you're an idiot — Saturday September 22, 2012 @ 3:29pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • How about making it one of your top priorities to get more writers of substance and ability to serve on the board, and forget about racist considerations such as skin color? Just a thought….

      Comment by EvelynP — Sunday September 23, 2012 @ 1:14pm PDT  Reply to this post

• “Just saying” is ‘Just a complete idiot.
  Sad little person
  Small little brain
  Racist mind

  Comment by Paul — Saturday September 22, 2012 @ 1:11pm PDT  Reply to this post