The Writers Guild of America Says “Thousands” of Writers Have Fired Their Agents in the Last 3 Days
Thousands of writers have fired their agents, Writers Guild of America West president David Goodman said in a Monday letter to members less than three days after a Friday midnight deadline arrived with no deal between the WGA and Association of Talent Agents.
So what’s happening is that, typically, writers are represented by an agent, especially an agent as part of a large agency of agents, managers, publicists, etc. Those agents and their agencies only earn money when the person they’re representing makes money, typically 10-15% of whatever the person they’re representing is paid, pre-tax.
What’s been happening in Hollywood is that agencies have been dealing more direct with TV and movie production houses to package together teams of writers, producers, actors, etc., and cutting the pay that these individuals would have received had they been represented individually. As an added bonus to the agency, the production house will pay the agency directly a packaging fee, which does not go to the individuals the agency’s agents represent.
This creates a conflict of interest, in that the agents are now working for the production houses to cut them deals because the agents can now earn more through the packaging fees than if they were to make a cut of the writer’s pay. It also means that the agent no longer is trying to make the best deal for the writer they represent because they will always earn more the more they save the production houses overall.
Now we’re getting to a point where the same big agencies with these agents making packaging deals are also creating production firms to produce TV shows and movies. This means that the agents now have a vested interest in not only getting the best deals for packaging writers, producers, etc., together, but now they earn more money the more they save on the production costs altogether. That’s because they can now own part or all of the rights to the TV show or movie and thus earn money off its profits. So now they have a double-dipping effort to earn more money by bypassing the writers completely.
This is what has been happening, since TV show writers’ pays have been dwindling, while the big agencies’ profits have been soaring.
The WGA has been asking the agencies to act as fiduciaries to the people who they represent; that is, they must act in the financial best interests of the writers instead of themselves. Instead, the agencies have countered that they’re willing to forego the cuts they take of writers’ pay, and will periodically be transparent about how much money they’re taking in via packaging and production.
The WGA feels that this is inadequate and has asked, as a sign of solidarity, that every one of its members, which is nearly every single writer working in Hollywood for motion pictures, television, even sometimes the live theater, fire their agents who work for any company who refuses to sign a pledge that their agents will act as fiduciaries to their represented writers. The big agencies have refused to sign on, so thousands of writers have started firing their agents.
