WGA’s Epic Two-Year Battle With Major Talent Agencies Set Stage For Showdown With Studios Over New Contract
deadline.comAs the Writers Guild of America’s negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is about to enter the final week before their contract expires, both sides are hopeful it won’t take a strike to get a deal done.
But the WGA’s long battle with the talent agencies showed it can reach agreements with even the most intractable of mega-companies.
Four years ago today, on April 22, 2019, more than 7,000 WGA members fired their agents en masse – a show of solidarity at the start of the guild’s historic two-year campaign to reshape the talent agency business that still is playing out today, emboldening the guild in its ongoing negotiations with the studios for a new film and TV contract.
Five days before the mass firings, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Big Three agencies that sought to establish that packaging – in which the major talent agencies were paid fees by production companies to package the creative elements of their projects – are illegal under California and federal law.
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