WGA East Leaders Strike Compromise on Membership Battle, Will Pursue Changes to Union Structure

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorLeaders of the WGA East have reached a compromise after months of friction over the membership base of the union that represents film and TV writers on the East Coast.The WGA East council voted unanimously to pursue major changes to the union’s constitution to allow for different classifications of membership.

The council is recommending changes that will be voted on in a member referendum later this spring.All of this is an effort to settle the divide over the WGA East’s big push during the last decade to organize writers for digital news and entertainment outlets.“The WGAE Council has spent the last several months working together and with an outside facilitator.

I think I speak for everyone involved when I say that it has been a learning process in which everyone exchanged ideas and listened to one another,” said Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America East. “Now we have united.

I’m enthusiastic about the result and the next chapter for this brave union of storytellers.” Longtime WGA East members who work in traditional entertainment and scripted TV and film have gradually raised concerns about the influx of members who typically make far less that successful screenwriters and showrunners.