Today, the negotiations began between the WGA and the AMPTP.

Well, at least the formality of negotiations began.

Leading up to this day, I’ve seen quite a bit of spin and positioning. As always, I’m here to try and untangle the truth from all of the hype. I’m keenly aware that there are some in union leadership who honestly wish I’d just shut up, because a membership that only gets their news from Pravda is a Happier membership, but we’re all too smart to be snowed.

And, frankly, I think leadership will probably like this particular article anyway.

Before I start with all that, I want to review some statistics that were released by the Guild in their annual report.

First, Guild members earned 905.8 million dollars in 2006 (under Guild contracts, of course). That’s down 1.5% from 2005, but still up quite a bit from 2004, when we earned 869.2 million. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to reconcile this major increase with our reported loss of jurisdiction. If we’re working fewer jobs but earning more money…could it be that fewer writers are just getting paid more?

It’s certainly possible.

Overall, however, the amount of working writers in the WGAw hasn’t really changed (even if the ones working have). Year after year, with minor fluctuations, about 4,400 WGAw members actually get hired to write. The total amount of “current active” members in the union? 8,084, which is down from 9,216 in 2000.

One thing to note about that: when it comes time to vote for contracts or vote for strikes, nearly half of the eligible voters will not have written under a Guild contract for at least a year. That’s not exactly an ideal political situation to be in if you are a working writer.

Television writing earnings held steady, although that number is practically worthless as an aggregate, since so many TV writers earn large portions of their dough as producers (which isn’t reportable to the Guild). Film writer earnings dropped slightly, but not in any major way.

The foreign levies situation still seems a mire. The program is still holding over $20 million. I’d like to see that number get knocked down into the single digits by ‘08.

And what about residuals? After all, that’s the big issue this year.

Well, WGA writers earned more in residuals this year than in any year prior: $264 million. Television residuals were way up, mostly because the boom in DVD releases of old shows is still echoing.

However, film residuals from home video were down, reflecting the softening of the DVD market.

Wait, I’m sorry…the Guild publication has a different explanation for that…

…this area declined…reflecting the prominence of non-Guild animated features, each of which woud generate a million-dollar residual, and also reflecting the exhaustion of the release of the film libraries into the DVD market, which has been ongoing for about seven years.

That is just dumb. Do we really need to editorialize about non-union work when it’s obviously not the cause of the dip? Non-union theatrical animation has been booming since I was in college. It is not at all a significant cause in the dip for feature residuals. It’s entirely about the DVD market going soft.

I just find bad arguments to be annoying.

Anyway, enough with the statistics. There were two major developments preceeding this week’s start of negotiations.

First, the companies announced that far from being interested in giving us a good residuals formula on downloads, they were now interested in getting rid of residuals altogether and shifting to a profit-participation model.

Awww, that’s cute.

Ummmmmmmmm, no.

Residuals aren’t some rootless payment we argued for because it sounded sexy. Residuals are our financial substitute for royalties. We agree to work for hire, they agree to pay us residuals as if our authorship were meaningful (which it is).

Like royalties, residuals don’t exist to reward us for the companies’ profits. They don’t exist to make us partners with the employees. They exist to compensate us for the reuse of our works of authorship. Plain and simple.

It doesn’t matter how much money a movie makes. Every time you reuse it by selling a DVD or airing it on television or putting it on the internet, you must compensate the author for that privilege.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m a big fan of sharing in profit. But not to the exclusion of what is a basic right of authorship.

Happily, I don’t think the AMPTP is ever going to do this. I think some members would like to do it, but the cooler heads there are well aware that if they attempt to eliminate residuals, the WGA and SAG will strike until their dying breaths. Even worse, guys like me would be happily marching next to guys like Patric Verrone.

Eliminating residuals is simply not an option. It’s a poison pill.

That’s probably why they shouldn’t have announced it the way they did. In my opinion, it made them look a little bit desperate. An insinuation might have been more chilling. A news conference?

Not their best move to date.

Meanwhile, the WGA has suddenly figured out how to play the game. Even though our latest contract bulletin features an article by “Chief Negotiator David Young” (particularly amusing, given how much current leadership hated the fact that John McLean called himself “Chief Negotiator”…meet the new boss….), the star of the WGA for the past two weeks has been not David…not Patric, but…

John Bowman, chairman of the Negotiating Committee.

And what’s so hot about that?

Well, kudos to Patric and David for finding enough to humility to realize that they’ve blown a ton of credibility with the town. On the other hand, Bowman has some legitimacy. He created a hit sitcom, and he was a showrunner, which means he’s had real experience dealing with management in a partnership.

He’s got an MBA from Harvard, so he can speak Corporate.

Most importantly, he’s a fairly moderate guy. I’ve known John for about three years now. He’s calm, level-headed, and completely disinterested in an ideology-driven agenda. He was a great choice to head the NegComm, and I think he’s an excellent complement to Patric’s olde tyme religious fervor.

Therefore, it’s WGA 1, AMPTP 0 as we head into the first week.

Still, this is pretty much all about biding time. We’re not going to make a deal in the next few months. And we will work past our deadline.

The game is still the same. Will the DGA sit back and see if a WGA/SAG alliance can get a good deal? Or will they decide that brings too much of a strike risk, and slip in between to end all the strife?

I hate to say it, but this fight probably won’t get interesting until next April.

I’ll keep updating as it goes…