WGA Reportedly Glad Its Agency Campaign Is Over

 This week we see WGA West President David A. Goodman go on record as ‘very pleased’ that the 34-month agency campaign from the WGA has drawn to a close.

David Goodman further states that they have ‘achieved their goal’, with the talent agencies representing their writers now sharing aligned goals with the WGA itself. It’s pretty clear they are glad to see issues such as packaging fees and agency-owned production entities put to rest, deeming them ‘problematic business practices’ from the start. As Goodman himself puts it, ‘a writer’s agent should make more only when his client does.’

While the core idea of packaging- bringing together the separate creative elements of a show in one bundled whole- is perhaps not all that worthy of worry, the WGA has long maintained that they create a conflict of interest for the agent. As a knock-on effect, the agent has an incentive to low-ball their writer-client in favor of agency-owned production interests. In fact, the WGA has claimed this to be ‘illegal kickbacks’, citing state and federal labor laws and noting that the agencies then are both representing clients and employing them, hardly a recipe for the client’s best interests to be maintained.

While uptake was slow at first, once 7,000 WGA members fired their agents in April 2019 we saw much onboarding from small- and mid-sized agencies. By the end of 2020, four of the largest agencies were the only holdouts. With CAA signing in December 2020, WME was the last to reach an agreement. In many ways, it’s a toppling of goliaths for the WGA, and while many personal kudos can be handed to WGA committee members, it’s important to note that the firm buy-in of members from both WGA West and East and their continued support of the guild, has been a critical deciding factor in their success too.

Where from here? We could well see this victory open the door for SAG-AFTRA and the DGA (who came out strongly in support of the WGA last week) to also renegotiate for their members. SAG-AFTRA, in particular, has a falling out with ATA over very similar ideas that might be ripe for revisiting. BLAKE & WANG P.A entertainment law firms Los Angeles will be watching the situation as it develops.