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Leading Hollywood talent agencies have offered the WGA the opportunity to share with the WGA a portion of the revenue generated by film and film packaging fees, to prevent thousands of writers from firing their agents on Saturday.
The financial offer was part of a lengthy proposal sent by the Association of Talent Agents to WGA negotiators late Wednesday. We believe that the offer invited the guild to create a special fund that would receive a percentage of the revenue from each agency's packaging fee. The ATA has been cautious about publishing a difficult figure because other Hollywood guilds, including the DGA and SAG-AFTRA, are waiting for an agreement similar revenue sharing.
"More specifically, the agencies will provide a percentage of their final profits to screenwriters – 80% of which will be shared among the writers of a show not participating in the profits of the series, regardless of the agency.
represents them. The remaining 20% will be invested in industry initiatives and programs aimed at fostering and expanding the inclusion of historically under-represented writers. This is a significant investment in the writers community, "said ATA Executive Director Karen Stuart in a message to members last Thursday.
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The guild proposal was designed to address WGA leaders' concerns that a subgroup of writers is being squeezed at a time when the income gap between the Hollywood A-List and the rest of the creative community is growing. The complaints of the lower and middle-level writers helped to prompt WGA to renegotiate the terms of its franchise agreement with an agency to cover packaging costs, which the guild cited as a financial compression factor for some editors.
The ATA offer also provided for a $ 6 million, three-year payment to what is described as "a sector fund to foster and encourage inclusion".
The parties met earlier in the day or at their fourth meeting in six days, but they were unable to finalize an agreement on the main issues related to the cost of packaging and the ownership of production companies affiliated with an agency. Sources on both sides of the table expressed pessimism about the parties' chances of reaching an agreement.
The ATA's decision to disclose the details of its proposal indicates that negotiations are at risk of stalemate. Agents want industry as a whole to understand the steps they have taken to try to reach a compromise and avoid the mass separation of writers and agents.
On Wednesday, ATA held a meeting of members at Century City's InterContinental Hotel, which was a solidarity rally for more than 200 agents. Sources said many participants took turns at the microphone and expressed the feeling that, if the agents conceded too much in the battle of conditioning and production, an emboldened WGA could decide to attack at the same time. future to other problems, such as reducing commission costs. the current standard of 10%.
The guild and ATA are trying to prevent thousands of WGA members from mass dismissing their agents as of 12:01 pm Saturday. The guild is committed to implementing its new agency code of conduct if it can reach an agreement with the ATA on a new agency franchise agreement – which, as proposed, eliminate the cost of packaging and prohibit the ownership of production companies to parent companies of agencies.
The parties had been faced with the expiry of the April 6 contract, but an eleventh hour meeting that day led the WGA to accept a six-day delay in implementing the code.
The largest Hollywood agencies, represented by the Association of Talent Agents, have been reluctant to reform the guild's code of conduct. The WGA states that taking studio fees for the packaging business and owning production subsidiaries constitutes a conflict of interest in the fiduciary duties of the agencies to their writing clients.
The previous franchise agreement between the guild and ATA, known as the Artist Artist Basic Contract, has not been renegotiated since 1976.
Here is the complete letter ATA:
Dear ATA members,
As you know, we worked diligently to reach an agreement with the WGA. Thank you all who attended our members meeting this week. We greatly appreciate your contributions, your advice and your unwavering support as we conduct these negotiations as a unified front. As we discussed, the WGA Code of Conduct threatens the activities of agencies, whether they are two agents or 2,000.
The last days have been a fast crescendo at this crucial moment of our negotiations. We have now submitted to the WGA full counter-proposals to their problems.
We have listened to and heard significant comments from WGA leaders this week, as well as from our agency meetings and public meetings with client writers in recent months. These meetings helped us to better understand and reflect on fundamental issues, including calls for greater transparency, a deeper understanding of the agency's activities, and increased support for lower-level writers. and ultimately better alignment of compensation for agents and drafters. Our objective throughout the discussions so far has been to avoid the destabilizing fallout of the sector.
You will find below a summary of our draft counterproposals:
- Partnership with the Guild: Agents are, and have always been, on the writer's side and are committed to protecting writers from free rewriting and late payments. The WGA has requested access to customer contracts and invoices so that they can intervene directly with the studios / employers to rectify the situation on behalf of the authors. Although WGA already has the power to collect this information from its guild members and the studios are also required to submit it to the guild, collection is problematic. Agencies have agreed to provide the Guild with a copy of contracts with authors and financial information for writing services under the Guild's jurisdiction – with the ability for the author to refuse to share his or her confidential information.
- Share success: When a packaged show sells well, the authors now share that success and receive a share of agency packaging costs. Specifically, the agencies will provide the authors with a percentage of their final profits – of which 80% will be shared between the authors of a program not participating in the profits of the series, regardless of the agency that represents them. The remaining 20% will be invested in industry initiatives and programs aimed at fostering and expanding the inclusion of historically under-represented writers. This is a significant investment in the writers community.
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