Email campaign to push WGA leaders on DGA deal: 'The more they hear from us, the better off we'll be'

Scribe Craig Mazin has shared plenty of thoughtful commentary on the WGA and the strike through his Artful Writer blog during the past three months. Now he's taken a step further and distributed a form email letter to send to WGA leaders urging them to embrace the DGA deal terms as "a deal we can live with."

Here's Craig's letter, followed by his form letter:

Dear Friends:

By now, you've heard that the DGA has made a deal with the AMPTP that addresses the concerns that many of us had. The deal includes a rate for sales over the internet that's double what we currently get for DVDs, locks in jurisdiction over made-for-internet material, and provides a combination flat fee/percentage residual for ad-supported streaming.

You can read John Wells' opinion of the deal here: http://artfulwriter.com/?p=318
I've been in touch with a lot of you over the last few weeks, and many have asked what could be done to help make our voices heard within Guild leadership.

Here's a chance.

If you, like me, believe that our Negotiating Committee, Board and officers need to find a way to get the DGA deal done on our collective behalf, please let them know now. The more they hear from the rank and file, the more informed their decisions will be.

You can write anything you'd like. If you're looking for a form letter, here's what I'm sending them.

Dear WGA Leadership:

Thanks to your tireless efforts in running a successful strike, the DGA was able to close on a deal they would have never otherwise achieved.

Thank you!

Now that our combined efforts have led to a deal we can live with, I'm urging you to get the same deal for us as expeditiously as possible. Our collective sacrificed worked. It's time to complete our victory and get back to work.

Appreciatively,


I'm sending my email cc'ing the following people.

Patric Verrone: pverrone@wga.org
John Bowman: johnfbowman@aol.com
David Young: dyoung@wga.org
Robert King: rking36@gmail.com

I suggest you all do the same.

If you're so inclined, it's best to send the email TODAY. The NegCom is meeting this weekend.

The more they hear from us, the better off we'll be.

Comments

[hhangel]

The true VICTIMS of your strike!!!!

http://hhangel.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/writers-strike-no-joke-to-below-the-line-crew/

[Ashley Gable]

Wow. How incredibly irresponsible to endorse a deal WHOSE TERMS YOU DO NOT KNOW. All we have is a press release on what the DGA deal is. That's like trying to decide if a script is any good by reading the cover letter the agent sent.

For example, the press release says the deal provides "jurisdiction over new media" -- what does that mean? Are there minimums, or just the requirement that it's a WGA member who gets the $1.05 per hour the company pays for web content? Will there be contributions to pension and health? What is the "distributor's gross" formula exactly?

The corporate forces arrayed against the writers shrieked that the WGA must not rush to judgment and decry the deal, but apparently they only said that because they wanted their own rush to judgment heard while the WGA was silent.

Fortunately, the WGA membership is far too savvy to fall for this kind of silliness (and shilliness). The members will judge the deal when its terms are known. Then we'll debate it a whole bunch and then we'll decide. None of us is stupid enough to embrace -- or decry -- a press release.

[Ashley Gable]

Wow. How incredibly irresponsible to endorse a deal WHOSE TERMS YOU DO NOT KNOW. All we have is a press release on what the DGA deal is. That's like trying to decide if a script is any good by reading the cover letter the agent sent.

For example, the press release says the deal provides "jurisdiction over new media" -- what does that mean? Are there minimums, or just the requirement that it's a WGA member who gets the $1.05 per hour the company pays for web content? Will there be contributions to pension and health? What is the "distributor's gross" formula exactly?

The corporate forces arrayed against the writers shrieked that the WGA must not rush to judgment and decry the deal, but apparently they only said that because they wanted their own rush to judgment heard while the WGA was silent.

Fortunately, the WGA membership is far too savvy to fall for this kind of silliness (and shilliness). The members will judge the deal when its terms are known. Then we'll debate it a whole bunch and then we'll decide. None of us is stupid enough to embrace -- or decry -- a press release.

[Kitty]

Gosh, what would we all do without the wisdom of Craig Mazin to guide us. Thank you so much, Craig, for your tireless efforts to undercut our leadership. You are awesome.

[Kitty]

And let me add that this deal doesn't address, for one thing, the very sticky issue of separated rights -- which doesn't apply to directors but most certainly does to writers.

So, Mazin, calm down and let the people we ELECTED look at the deal and make a decision. Remember... you ran for election, and YOU LOST. So quit trying to make end runs around the guild with your cabal of "moderates" (is that anything like the moral majority?) and remember that you have no more standing in the WGA than the rest of the rank and file members. Less -- because the rest of us have been out there pounding the pavement in the strike that enabled the DGA to make the gains it made in the first place.

[Ashley Gable]

Here's my suggestion for a mass email to Craig Mazin:

Dear Craig:

Despite your tireless efforts to muck up our strike, the DGA was able to close on a deal they would have never otherwise achieved without us.

[Expletive deleted] you!

Now that your pathetic efforts have led to your endorsing a DGA deal you don't even know the terms of, I'm urging you to stop bloviating as expeditiously as possible. Our collective sacrificed worked despite you. It's time to complete our victory and send you back to the marginal place from whence you came.

Appreciatively,

[Stuart Creque]

"How incredibly irresponsible to endorse a deal WHOSE TERMS YOU DO NOT KNOW."

Since Craig Mazin is a DGA member as well as a WGA member, it's possible that privy to the entire text of the deal.

[writer of wrongs]

Mazin and Wells are DGA and WGA members. Take a guess which guild is more important to them? (Pssst. It's not the WGA.) And... Wait for it... Wells is a member of the AMPTP. Thanks for selling us out guys.

[Steven Palmer Peterson]

There's nothing preventing anyone else from emailing the WGA leadership and expressing their opinion or disagreeing with Mazin. In fact, expressing your opinion to your leaders and motivating others to do the same is sort of a key feature of democracy. Not that anyone seems to give a shit about democracy any more.

[True Moderate]

Craig Mazin is a huge tool.