The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild Read Online Free Page A

bargaining unit that digests the concerns of hundreds of production companies, networks, and studios and then delivers a proposal—representing the united group’s interests—to the negotiating table. Whereas in standard bargaining a union tries to garner advantage by playing one company off against others, the AMPTP positions itself so that the various unions must jostle with each other, grabbing for scraps at the table. This tactic, called “reverse pattern bargaining,” forces each guild into what one member called “a kind of a chess game between the three unions.” 29
    Since its formation, the Writers Guild has gone on strike six times, in 1959–1960, 1973, 1981, 1985, 1988, and 2007–2008. Three of these industrywide walkouts were protracted, lasting for many months. SAG has endured a total of five strikes. In marked comparison, DGA’s members have walked out only one time since the guild’s formation in 1936. That strike, in 1987, lasted three hours and five minutes. IATSE has never once gone on strike over filmed entertainment. 30 In 1945, members of the short-lived Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) picketed their employers and literally took a beating. Despite screaming matches, lost jobs, and finger pointing among its members, the Guild still enjoys greater cohesion than other entertainment unions.
    Three Recurring Themes
    As I interviewed writers and began weaving their individual recollections into the larger narrative of the American media industry, I noticed three overarching issues. I will call attention to them in the following chapters, and so I want to pause here and explain each one briefly. They are: the shifting definitions of ownership and authorship, the meaning of a writer’s name ona screen credit, and the perception of writers being outsiders within their own professional communities.
    Authorship, Ownership, and Control
    Writers are at once creative artists and employees. Frank Pierson, former president of WGAw and of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and writer of
Cool Hand Luke
and
Dog Day Afternoon
, explained the absurdity of work-for-hire rules, which have plagued writers since the earliest days of cinema. “Work-for-hire says that Pope Julius II and so on painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria wrote Wagner’s operas. . . . [T]he employer is deemed to be the author. And that’s the source of our problem.” 31 Long before the time of Guild’s first contract, writers had lost control of copyright. The US Copyright Act of 1909 states: “the word ‘author’ shall include an employer in the case of works made for hire.” 32 As creative workers churning out stories for studios, writers have no ownership. Not until 1960, after a long-fought battle, did they begin to receive residual payments for subsequent screenings of their work. Profit participation for creative workers began in the 1950s: the writers’ pay rate is generally at 2 to 10 percent of net profit points, although a minority of writers have brokered deals for gross point profits. Screenwriters are paid for a script and for rewrites (plus a production bonus if and when a film based on the script starts principal photography) and for residuals on ancillary sales.
    Unless a special clause has been written into the contract, writers have no creative control over their work once it has been purchased. Erik Barnouw, a documentary film writer and the president of the Radio Writers Guild (RWG) from 1947 to 1949, recalled his disappointment when he grasped his loss: “I remember the first time I discovered that something I had written for
Cavalcade of America
was copyrighted, and it said on the copyright card: ‘Author: DuPont Company.’ I remember, I came face to face with the realization that DuPont was the author of what I had written.” 33 David Harmon, whose career as a television writer spanned more than thirty years, from
The Man Behind the Badge
to
Hotel
, offered a similar