Verrone
Elliot
Hollywood should expect a combo of feistiness and frustration from the next set of elected leaders of the WGA West.
That's the indication as a spirited campaign has emerged between two slates -- Patric Verrone's New WGA and Ted Elliott's Common Sense -- for the presidency and 10 other slots.
Scribes are highly frustrated over the issues of DVD residuals, jurisdiction over reality TV, free rewrites, the dispute with the WGA East and prepping for the 2007 contract negotiations. Those topics emerged as the most pressing among the 23 WGA West candidates in official campaign statements released Tuesday in a 124-page booklet sent to about 7,600 WGA West members, who will elect a president, a VP, a secretary-treasurer and eight board members.
Results, to be announced Sept. 20, will offer a signal on how the scribes view the guild's handling of strategic issues and whether slates carry any clout among WGA West members.
'Payback' time?
Elliott, a board member best known for co-writing "Shrek" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," has criticized the guild's negotiating strategy last year as unrealistic and born of a desire for "payback" for the 20-year-old DVD formula and losses from the 1988 strike.
"There is a mentality that has become endemic to the culture of the guild, one that says that the only gains worth bothering with are significant gains, and that significant gains are the only ones possible," he said in his campaign statement. "We go into negotiations looking backward instead of forward. We make our ideals into negotiating demands and make our demands into ultimatums instead of opening positions."
Elliott asserted that the WGA lacks a long-term negotiating strategy and has proposed establishing a standing negotiating strategy committee.
"The primary mission of any union is to negotiate and enforce contracts on behalf of its members; as such, it is beyond foolish to ignore negotiations two out of every three years and then hope to go into bargaining as well prepared as we need to be," he added.
Elliott also stressed the importance of focusing on the residual rates for Internet delivery systems, arguing that the WGA needs to lock in a rate higher than the current 1.2% for downloads.
Organizing the guild
Verrone, the current secretary-treasurer, has emphasized that the guild needs to devote more resources to organizing non-union writing on reality TV, cable and animation.
"Here are the top three priorities of my campaign: organize, organize and organize," he said in his statement.
Verrone said the WGA has the financial resources and the need to expand organizing. "All we lack is the will to make this a union that expands its jurisdiction with industrywide organizing campaigns to recapture market share and regenerate collective power," he added. "The conglomerates have themselves organized. So should we."
Verrone also asserted that the WGA's organizing effort should include prepping members for negotiations to replace the current contract, which expires in November 2007.
"Unions that care about organizing have massive think tank-like research departments," he added. "Our union has a single researcher and a temp. We can do better."
The slates
Elliott's slate includes current VP Carl Gottlieb, secretary-treasurer candidate Irma Kalish and board hopefuls Steve Chivers, Douglas Eboch, Eric Heisserer, Mike Langworthy, Don Mankiewicz, Dan McDermott, Tim O'Donnell and Melissa Rosenberg. Mankiewicz, O'Donnell and Rosenberg are incumbents.
Verrone's slate includes VP candidate David N. Weiss, secretary-treasurer candidate Elias Davis and board candidates Robert King, Peter Lefcourt, Joan Meyerson, Dan Wilcox, Howard Rodman, Scott Frank, Phil Alden Robinson and Tom Schulman. Davis, King, Lefcourt and Weiss are current board members.
David S. Weiss is running as an independent board candidate.
Much of the pamphlet is devoted to statements of support. Board member Craig Mazin, in a statement for Elliott, said Verrone's emphasis on organizing will result in cutting core services, raiding reserves and boosting dues. "The New WGA platform might be a good strategy for other unions," he added. "It's a terrible strategy for our union."
No service cuts
Robinson said in response that services won't be cut and dues won't be raised. And he noted that the Guild has lost 900 members in the past five years due to shrinking jurisdiction.
"There is no way on earth this guild can fight for its members unless we reverse this trend," Robinson wrote. "And there is no better use for a portion of our surplus than growing and strengthening this Guild."
Daniel Petrie Jr., who won a special election last year as president, has endorsed Elliott while former presidents John Wells, Victoria Riskin, Melville Shavelson, Frank Pierson and David Rintels are supporting Verrone. Elliott was elected as part of Petrie's Stronger Guild slate last fall.
The election is the first for the WGA West since the Dept. of Labor supervised a hotly contested presidential election between Petrie and Eric Hughes. That election, held to fill the one year left in the term of former prexy Riskin, who resigned in January 2004, featured extensive debate over the guild's strategy in contract negotiations and how it administers screenplay credits.
The feds supervised last year's contest to resolve complaints over how the 2003 election was conducted after Labor Department investigators found that the WGA West had not properly qualified Riskin's candidacy, which was invalid due to her not working under the WGA contract for the previous four years.
Contact Dave McNary at
dave.mcnary@variety.com