WGA West Board Candidates Address Wide Range Of Issues Ahead Of Next Year’s Contract Talks And Possible Strike
deadline.comNext year’s contract talks and a possible writers strike are looming large over the WGA West’s ongoing board election, in which 17 candidates are vying for eight open seats.
The WGA’s current contract doesn’t expire until May 1, but in their campaign statements, many of the candidates are making it clear that they’re prepared to strike if the guild can’t get a fair deal at the bargaining table.And there’s considerable pent-up demand for major gains, in no small part because in 2020, when the WGA’s previous contract was set to expire, contractual advances the guild had hoped to make became all but impossible to achieve because the threat of a strike was all but off the table as the industry was already shut down by the first wave of the Covid pandemic.Several candidates observed that the guild’s historic victory last year in reshaping the talent agency business – banning packaging fees and limiting agency ownership of production entities to 20% – also has strengthened the WGA’s hand going into the 2023 contract talks.
Still others pointed to the 100-day strike of 2007-08 and how the major gains it achieved in New Media could not have been won without a walkout.
Two of the candidates – Ashley Gable and Rich Talarico – even served as strike captains during the industry’s last major strike.“I don’t want to go on strike,” board candidate Van Robichaux wrote in his campaign statement. “Nobody wants to go on strike.
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