EXCLUSIVE: There was “fire and brimstone” at tonight’s WGA membership meeting – the last to be held before the start of contract negotiations with the AMPTP on Monday. The meeting, held via Zoom, was led by the co-chairs of the guild’s negotiating committee: former WGA West presidents Chris Keyser and David A. Goodman.
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A guild member who attended provided Deadline with this written account of the meeting:
“Keyser basically ran the show. About 35 minutes of setup. He was passionate, and even though Goodman made a little speech about how we are not going to strike unless we have to, Keyser was fire and brimstone, rallying the troops. Stats were shown that the companies are making more money than ever, but we were making less than ever. He talked about the 7,000 replies they got from their surveys – picked out a few horror stories.
“The basic point is that we need to change the MBA, not just amend it. And that this is the time – now or never!
“They talked about features and the desire to get a two-step process guaranteed.
“The most talk was about episodic and the need to ‘get our money and power back’ from these mini-rooms … everything really was about the mini-rooms … new weekly minimums for mini-rooms but also rules that all writers involved in a mini-room get money upon pickup. A minimum of number of writers to be hired for the mini-rooms. Span protection to be bettered.
“We won’t have a middle class unless we take care of this now. We are a union with a ‘lion’s heart.’”
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