DGA settles new pact - six months early

[bk]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 8:54pm

After four or five days of negotiations, the DGA and the producers have agreed on a new contract. Many gains for the new electronic media distribution, jurisdictional gains on the Internet for the first time, and nice wage increases. The DGA is probably the smartest of any of the unions. They normally begin talks eight months in advance of the contract expiration. They don't posture, they go in to hammer out the best deal they can - they go in with a strong but positive attitude and they normally get what they want and think is fair for their members, while still being realistic. I've been a proud member of this union since 1981 and only once has there been a strike (I served on the committee), in 1987. That strike, BTW, lasted fifteen minutes.

I think it's pretty clear that the WGA will soon follow suit now - the writing is on the wall. The DGA is a model of how an entertainment union should handle negotiations. Others should learn from them. The fact is, the DGA wanted to start these negotiations in October, but out of respect to the WGA held off until this last round of talks broke off with both sides refusing to return to the tables.

My guess, is that talks will suddenly resume in the next couple of weeks. If they carry this on the ramifications will be very bad indeed. But, I think they now know that the producers are certainly not going to give them any more than they gave the DGA - so there is a certain reality that has set in.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 11:48pm

Oh take a leap, BK. As a proud member of the WGA since 1988, I find it rather offensive when the DGA and its members boast about their/your negotiating accumen.

Gil Cates and the DGA are responsible for the mess we're in today. In 1988, the DGA wimped out and caved, creating the mess of a contract that so totally favors the studios that the AMPTP has fought tooth-and-nail to keep it in place ever since.

Cates and his friends settled for pennies (twelve to be exact) for each DVD sale (well actually, for each VHS sale and "any future recording mechanism"). That contract has been described in business schools as one of the most short-sighted deals in entertainment industry history.

The DGA settles first because a majority of their members get one or two big payments and no residuals, then the AMPTP tries to use the DGA agreement as a basis to ram down the throats of the WGA and SAG.

MAYBE this time the DGA has shown some balls and negotiated a stronger deal. We'll see in the next few days. If they have, it's because of the strong, united, principled stand taken by the WGA.

I hope you guys have manned up for a change and taken a solid stance with the AMPTP. History, sadly, is not in your favor.

Updated On: 1/18/08 at 11:48 PM

[bk]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 1:37am

Oh, okay. The WGA rules. The DGA sucks. Except from what I read this evening, we got a really nice contract, and I am here to tell you it had nothing to do with the WGA. So, go know. I have had the opportunity to join the WGA for thirty years - many, many times - I came close when I sold my script of The Faculty to Miramax and I came close again when I was one of the writers on the first season of Penn and Teller's Bull****! But I didn't - why? Because I don't like the way the guild is run, frankly. The decision to take a producer credit on the Penn and Teller show cost me a WGA award (although I was thanked), even though I wrote a good deal of Penn's material for that show. Oh, well. I have many close friends in the WGA, I love writers, but I most assuredly don't love the people who are running the guild.

I sincerely hope the WGA management and the producers go back to the table, forget about the posturing and the bombast and do what they have to do so everyone can go back to work.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 1:43am

Remind me again...

What does this have to do with Broadway?

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 2:49am

Neddyfrank, it has to do with this site every time a show is turned into a movie. Since we would all love to see more Broadway on the big screen and I'm sure we'd love to see the composers, lyricists and book authors get a fair deal, this strike is very important to the Broadway community.

BK, I've also read the description for the DGA agreement tonight and I am already disappointed with at least three areas. I had a chance to join the WGA in 1987 and I dove in and have never for a moment regretted. The Guild has been very good to me, provided me with rights and privileges that decades of struggle by writers before me have achieved and I support the leadership 100%.

I am a writer turned producer and while most of my work is now on the other side of the fence, I cannot condone the actions of Big Media in this situation. The writers deserve a fair deal because let's face it, without them, it's just dead air and empty stages.

MAYBE the WGA can build upon the deal the DGA has struck, but don't expect them to call it fair and balanced.

[bk]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 3:42am

Neddy child - all union negotiations are theater :)

All Of My Life, as you, feel that the WGA has been very good to you, so I feel that the DGA has been very good to me, even though most of my work in the last seventeen years has been as a record producer and stage director/writer and now novelist.

I thought the cursory look at the contract was that things were pretty fair all around. That said, I think everyone deserves a fair deal and I hope the writers get everything they can get - having been a writer for close to forty years now, I know it all starts with the word. And I know how much blood, sweat and tears goes into writing, especially within the studio system of today. I wish all my pals in the WGA well - I just got off the phone with a good friend who is an award-winning TV writer, and she feels like it will be moving forward from here and that maybe things will be settled in the next few weeks - if it isn't, pray for Rosemary's Baby, because it's not going to be pretty. But I'm keeping good thoughts.

Updated On: 1/18/08 at 03:42 AM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 4:05am

BK, great Rosemary's Baby qote. If you get a minute, www.unitedhollywood.blogspot.com has a fair breakdown of the points in the DGA agreement with the AMPTP, including the good points (and there are many and some are impressive) and the problematic ones (again, I'm afraid, more than a few).

The next few days will be very interesting....

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 12:13pm

Ovenight, by-and-large, my fellow WGA buds who have been crunching numbers are not doing handstands. I fear the worst....

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 1/18/08 at 7:13pm

Another one of my posts deleted...

Fun!