Go Union or Go Home?

Friend of the Blog Callaghan asked an interesting question below:

DMc - a possible future column: how long a young writer should wait before he/she joins the WGC/WGA. I noticed that you waited a few years.

Yeah. I did. Now, I'm going to do the caveat up front:

I am not a member of the Writer's Guild of America, West or East. When it comes to specifics about going union in the USA, there are many other writers whose advice I would consult first, as well as the excellent resources provided by the Guilds themselves.

That being said, I think the question about going union, and when, is a good one -- and involves some generalizations that are common to Canada, the USA, and probably other jurisdictions besides.

There's really only one thing to keep in mind when you're deciding when you should join the guild:

• Where's your work coming from?

The truth of joining the guild is this: once you go union, you can't go back. If you are a member of the union, you can't take non-union work. Period.

Now, in a perfect world, anyone who's producing anything for the public to see should be a signatory to the IPA (the Independent Production Agreement, in Canada, in the USA, the Minimum Basic Agreement.) They should want to work with the best writers. But, you know, Producers will always find a way to try and cut corners. And one of them is to use non-union writers.

You'd think this was because they want to pay you nothing, but that's sometimes not the case. In fact, most non-union productions, if they're reputable, will scale their payments at or close to what the Guild rate would be. (At least in Canada they will.) Often, believe it or not, they're just trying to save the "fringes" -- the percentage they're required to pay into your insurance, CPP, and pension if they're a signatory.

Now, the thing is, when you're starting out and have no credits at all, it's really hard to get hired. Getting them to hire you is a difficult slog, even if you're good. Because no one has taken a chance on you, no one wants to take a chance on you. Catch 22. If you're a good writer, but you're not yet union, well...maybe that's a way to score something starting out. If there's a non-signatory opportunity that you want to take, it could work out for you. Just so long as you know that if you ever really want to graduate to being a top-level writer, you're going to have to leave the non-union work behind.

But that might take a while.

In my case, the market for drama had just tanked after that 1999 CRTC policy change, and there just were no jobs. I worked lifestyle shows for over a year to keep afloat. They paid pretty well for the amount of work they were to do. That whole lifestyle narration game -- it's all very, very non-union. The WGC would love to make inroads into that market, but the reality is that I don't think there are too many new writers who'd be able to get writing jobs on just the signatory shows. There are companies that are also playing a bit of a game, in the sense that they'll sign on to the WGC for drama and comedy projects, but try to stay non-union for documentary and lifestyle stuff. Sleazy, but so long as they're separate numbered companies as the actual production entity, not illegal.

There is a TON of this kind of work out there -- and most of the writing on that makeover/dating/soapy shows is just bollocks. (I know more than one of those shows where they don't even hire a writer -- they make the poor editor write "guide script" that somehow never gets changed. Bleah.)

During the time before I went union, I did have a few contracts on WGC shows. I was contracted as a permitee, and the difference was basically that I didn't get the RRSP contribution, and they took 3% more of my cheque (5% instead of 2 or 3%, I think.)

The contracts on the WGC shows were always short term, and for development projects. None of them got picked up. Now, you can technically join the guild on your first contract. I didn't because, when calculating where my income was going to come from, far more was from non-union sources than signatory sources. If the contract I'd been offered was lots of weeks on a series, or a couple of freelance scripts, even, it might have prompted me to join earlier. You have to weigh how much that 2 or 3 percent is going to cost you, and if you can slam the non-union door yet. I finally joined when I scored a longer term job, where that money would have added up, where I would have really missed out on good RRSP contributions, and where a guild person really should have been filling that job.

But there's another reason why I think when you're starting out, you should try to get a bit of non-union work -- and this has nothing to do with the bottom line:

You need to get kicked.

I mean, you need to get screwed over. Yelled at, abused, taken advantage of, forced to toil at the whim and caprice of the deluded, the hateful and the insane.

Because it will happen.

TV attracts a lot of crazy people. Some of them are numbers people who want to be creative and don't have the talent and will make you pay for every second you spend with them so they don't have to face that ugly truth. Some are creative people who have somehow gotten into positions of responsibility with no idea how to motivate, manage, or even communicate with other people. Some (and these are the refreshing ones) are salespeople, and you will be a tool to them, like a hammer, or a pen, or a buzzswaw. Get used to it, word monkey.

I'm not saying you can't learn a lot from these people, and I'm not saying it won't be ultimately a rewarding experience on your way to learning your craft. But you will be taken advantage of, and in a very real sense, I think you have to be.

I know a few baby writers who managed to score a union gig right away, and joined up, and were lucky enough to never have to toil in the non-union ghetto. To a one, they seem to not really understand what it is the union does for them, and how things like minimums and RRSP contributions and working rules actually do benefit them. They take them for granted, like that girlfriend you had when you were 22 and now wish maybe you'd been a little nicer to. Until you've been pushed and messed around and burned a little, you don't really appreciate the sweet order the union brings to things. Producers will always try to squeeze -- that's their job. The fact that there's a body that draws a line in the sand for you and says, "You can't go past this," the fact that when some dork tries to go past it, they will actually step up and stand up for you -- all that is better understood when you've seen the other side.

I paint the non-union world in stark terms here. Now I've got to walk it back a bit: 90 percent of the gigs I worked non-union, I was treated very well. And the people were wonderful. And I learned a lot. But there's a lot of sorrow in that 10%. And new writers are often so focused on "breaking in" that they don't realize that, you know what, part of breaking in probably involves somebody being unpleasant to you down the line. Sometimes, you break in by getting broke.

Ask Will Dixon about the screamers. I mean, instead of me. I'm actually not ready to talk about my screamer experiences yet. Still too fresh. But I have had the egos. I've had producers who I found out were mad at me because I was not sufficiently deferential to them for them "giving me my start" in the business. (This, after being in the business for fifteen years, and giving way more value to them in the gig I did for them, than I got in return.) I've had gigs where most of my payment was "deferred" until...well....let's face it, until Christ returns and leads us to the New Jerusalem, or Branson, Mo. Or wherever.

You deal with all these people - the egos, the assholes, the bad managers...and don't kid yourself...once you go union, a lot of them are still there. But you have dental.

There's one side of the business that I haven't touched on yet. One way where maybe you don't ever want to go union.
Are you an entrepeneur?

A lot of writers are really bad businesspeople. But some aren't. Are you looking to make films and market stuff, and really sell sell sell? Are you looking to make your bones in indie craft where maybe the Guilds haven't gone yet? Are you looking at new technologies? Delivery systems? Are you somebody like the Mad Pulp Bastard, ready, eager, and able to work both those sides of the fence? Then maybe hold off on joining up. Why be restricted by the tenets of the agreement if you think you can get a better deal yourself, or if you're your own producer?

Bill is the kind of guy who could speak to this side of things better than me. Because the truth is that there are those out there who'll say that being union restricts your freedoms, too. I've heard those arguments. There are lots of people who say, for instance, that the fact that the WGC establishes minimums for script fees in this country means that no one ever makes more than the minimums. That may be so. But I bet you anything the minimums would be lower without 'em.

But in the end, I think it's about being part of a community. You can participate in things like the awards process, or go to the parties and actually meet other writers. It's important. It means that you're part of the group. You're serious. You're a pro. That's why I think, in the end, you've gotta know when to join up...but you've gotta join up.

Just don't think it's going to solve everything.

Now...there are some caveats I have about the whole union thing in the Canadian context that I haven't been able to weave in above, so I'm just gonna throw them in here.

The first is this: if you're an animation writer, I think you should join the Guild as soon as you can. Why? Because the WGC fought really hard to get animation covered over the last couple of agreements. The conditions for animation writers in Canada were vastly different before the Guild got jurisdiction. Most of the reputable companies have been organized, and gone signatory. If there are holdouts, then they're swimming against the tide and I don't think they should be supported. Animation in this country is a great way to break in, and there are lots of people doing lots of episodes. The WGC actually didn't establish a basic minimum for an animation script, because there was some play in there, and the likely minimum was going to be less than what some people were making. That will likely resolve itself over time. Also, the Writer's Guild of Canada is offering an incentive for animation writers to join right now. If you're writing animation, call'em and talk.

Secondly, in the just completed new IPA, the WGC has put in a new clause that takes away one of the obstacles to going union. It's a new waiver that allows a writer to fully negotiate any fee on a low budget project, under $60 000. So in other words, if you and your buddies want to do a short film, and everybody believes in it, and say you want to pay yourself as the writer the same as the crew because nobody's doing it for the money -- you're doing it with the hope that it will pay off down the line, well, now you can do that and not get in trouble with the union. This is a great positive step, I think, which allows you to try something different and not being forced to choose between the project and your Guild commitments. It's a testimony to the Guild's desire to be as flexible as possible for its membership that this got done. If only ACTRA would be as flexible...

So that's it. You've gotta choose when to go union. You don't want to do it too early, because then you're competing with people like me and trust me, Gwendolyn, I will rip out your still beating heart and show it to you before I let you take my freelance episode of that A-level supernatural thriller away...

...Oh God. Sorry. I don't know where that came from. Kittens. Fluffy Kittens. On a Beach.