John Wells Elected WGA President

One doesn’t need to look far to find an almost collusive relationship between the WGA’s pronouncements and the deals of John Wells with studios as a producer, and a special producer at that: one who is calling the shots for the WGA.Rice

The U.S. requires of its elected officials that they divest themselves of ownership in companies where a conflict of interest might be in evidence. No such concept in the WGA.games

DEJA WELLS ALL OVER AGAIN?

A SCREENWRITER RECALLS THE LAST TIME

Yes, Mr. Wells won a repeat performance as WGA honcho with the same cadre voting.

When rapid change is occurring in society or industry, it is well to reflect on history.

When mighty John Wells stepped up to the plate as the WGA President in 1999-2001, he may have hit home run after home run for his Warner-based production companies, but he sure struck out for Hollywood and the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the entertainment business.

Not only did the WGA win almost none of its 42 “pattern of demands” – even the 3.5 increase in residuals could have been won at the bargaining table long before a strike would even be considered, for example – but the scare tactics of the Union caused the studios and spend millions they might not have spent otherwise. While this created a brief windfall for established and already working writers, it stopped hundreds of other projects dead in their tracks. Now much of the funds have dried up, already granted to writers like Wells his crony producers.

The direct results of this are: every studio in Hollywood announces cutbacks in production and personnel; one billion dollars lost from advertisers this year; more than fifty studio production deals cancelled; writers are laid off or not re-hired, drastically reduced in salary; thousands of IATSE members out of work; agents ridding themselves of old clients (Innovative Agency dropped one hundred clients) – and on and on. These are the results of the John Wells - WGA strike that didn’t happen formally, but certainly happened in the minds of everybody involved.

Highly visible records show that the President of the WGA, a labor union affiliated with the AFL-CIO, was making production deals with other writers, networks and television studios until the very last days of the defacto strike.

The U.S. requires of its elected officials that they divest themselves of ownership in companies where a conflict of interest might be in evidence. No such concept in the WGA.

While his industry was in panic, and the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles was calling for a merciful resolution, WGA President JohnWells managed to tie up so many vendors that lighting houses were running out of stock. Wells did nothing to dispel the fear and contortionist manipulations of networks and studios to protect themselves from a possible indefinite inability to provide programming for their audiences, which they feared would bring them less ability to attract advertisers or produce quality programs.

While Wells cronies at the WGA were sending dire letters to the members, with public copies to producers and studios, Wells was making deals for ER WEST WING Third Watch” and movies like “White Oleander, “Double Crown.” Almost immediately after the strike was called off, Wells and CBS announced the “Citizen Blaine” was going into production.

At the same time he was taking a hard line for the WGA, which engaged in a defacto strike, advising writers not to “stockpile” scripts and report all producers asking for addition work which much conflicts with a “strike,” Wells was making lucrative production deals for himself and his company, John Wells Productions, both in L.A. and Gotham.

The largest and most notorious “strikebreaker” in the recent WGA undeclared strike was John Wells himself.

One doesn’t need to look far to find an almost collusive relationship between the WGA’s pronouncements and the deals of John Wells with studios as a producer, and a special producer at that: one who is calling the shots for the WGA.

The FBI is currently examining the activities of Teamster officials in Chicago who made deals under pressure of Union misuse of power. Union officials who cross the line into profiting from a strike or labor tactic are severely punished when caught. Maybe Hollywood operates under different rules, but the effects are the same: the membership suffers, and the core businesses suffer, as the businesses in Hollywood are suffering now.

Only a handful of WGA members will ever profit enough from the defacto WGA stike in a way to make the year’s work slowdown in any way worth the agony to so many.

The major beneficiary is John Wells and other “show runners”.

The WGA is not the guild I joined in the’70s. Today the WGA uses its power as a wedge to gain more and more of the producer’s share of the market even as the market for fictional scripts and series is smaller and smaller, leaving the pond for the biggest fish alone.

The major beneficiary of this past year of threats and fear for homes and livelihood is John Wells and other “show runners”.

If John Wells makes in a year what the Union has gained over the next three years, then he should share that with all the other writers who’s lives were suspended or contorted so he could make those gains.

The WGA seems to have been seduced and abandoned by the likes of Mr. Wells, and now that his minions are running to replace him, we can look for more militancy in the future: over “runaway production,” ageism, lack of original programming and the proliferation of reality shows. All of these issues have been exacerbated during the term of John Wells. If the WGA threatens to strike in three years, it will be because it has laid the foundation for less work among writers of every kind.

It’s said that John Wells makes in a year the 41 million that the Union has gained over the next three years, a paltry amount compared with the cost of the anguish over the past year, when Wells fired the first shots against the producers.

The results of his actions should net him even more, and in fairness, he should share that with all the other writers who’s lives were suspended or contorted so he could make those gains. Unable to get anything for themselves, they still suffered real emotional and monetary losses for the likes of Mr. Wells, and they ought to be compensated for this from Wells’ and others’ windfall profits.

Additionally, those who led the WGA ought to be investigated in the way that the energy companies who profited by a possibly false manipulation of the market are being investigated.

Under the thrall of Wells’ administration, the WGA took the slogan: “AMERICA’S STORYTELLS AND GAME MAKERS.”

So nobody won, really. When a major strike is threatened, it’s the marginals, the seldom-selling, younger or older, quirky or special writers who bear the true burden, since they can’t sell anything and when it’s over, have less places to sell to than before – while the higher-profile writers gain and gain.

One third of the WGA will never get a thing out of the sorts of demands Wells & Co. made. One half won’t get a residual check. But the top ten per cent or fewer make hundreds of millions. There is something out of whack in this picture.

It is become clear that the 3.5 per cent gain for the WGA, and the other proposals, never really required a “strike,” If the “pattern of demands” of the WGA were worthy of a strike, then we all should certainly be on the picket lines today, since these demands were not only not met, they were effectively spurned, even by other Hollywood Unions like the DGA and IATSE.

In fact, the WGA tactics actually backfired. If they had not backed themselves into a corner at the last moment, they might have gotten the kind of rise that SAG is holding out for.

While trade columnists and the WGA cheered John Wells as the man who liberated them from the “producers” it ought to be noted they were cheering the man whose ingenuity and policies imprisoned them. If the overwhelming 92 per cent of the WGA voted to accept the settlement, they were also voting against a strike, a strike which was already existing and which showed there would be no winners.

There are still no winners, if one observes the deathly quiet in the community. No winners, that is, save a few – with John Wells at the top of the list.

The U.S. requires of its elected officials that they divest themselves of ownership in companies where a conflict of interest might be in evidence. No such concept in the WGA.

Highly visible records show that the President of the WGA, a labor union affiliated with the AFL-CIO, was making production deals with other writers, networks and television studios until the very last days of the strike. While the city was in panic, Wells managed to tie up so many vendors that lighting houses were running out of stock. Wells did nothing to dispel the fear and contortionist manipulations of networks and studios to protect themselves from a possible indefinite inability to provide programming for their audiences, which they feared would bring them less ability to attract advertisers or produce quality programs.

The direct results of this are: one billion dollars lost from advertisers this year; more than fifty studio production deals cancelled; writers are laid off or not re-hired, drastically reduced in salary; thousands of IATSE members out of work; agents ridding themselves of old clients (Innovative Agency dropped one hundred clients) – and on and on. These are the results of the John Wells - WGA strike that didn’t happen formally, but certainly happened in the minds of everybody involved.

Now, if a fella like, say, Jimmy Hoffa (now deceased), who not only controlled the drivers but owned the wharehouses, and he, let’s just say, started scaring the shit out of both the drivers and the owners by suggesting their businesses and lives and families would be hurt of the thing weren’t settled a certain way, and then if this guy started making sales from the warehouse and deals from the warehouse which netted him large sums – tens of millions – from the operation, why – let me tell you, this guy would be locked up in prison and the key would be given to the FEDS.

In Hollywood, apparently, it doesn’t work that way.

However, it’s pretty quiet in these parts. Most studios are in suspense, Variety reports that 50 production companies where shuttered during the past year, and that crafts are out of work by as much as fifty per cent. Recent articles chronicled the demise and selling of old and established costume, prop and rental houses. Concurrently, foreign locales lure more and more talent from our shores, perhaps forever.

This silence makes it easier to hear the ching-ching of Wells cash register. Tinkling over the heads of the out of work and silently waiting movie folk.

WILLIAM RICHERT

First written in Santa Monica, 2002

Feels a lot like today.