Contract Enforcement Paid Writers Millions in 2021 Dashboard Dashboard

Guild Residuals and Legal Departments enforce the MBA to combat studios’ problematic payment practices.

(8/9/2022)

Last week, the Guild announced a recent landmark arbitration award involving undervaluation of imputed license fees by Netflix. What many members may not know is that this outcome was the result of the type of proactive contract enforcement the WGAW does every day.

In 2021, the Guild’s Legal Department collected more than $18 million in compensation, residuals, and pension & health contributions for members, as well as interest on those unpaid amounts, including $156,245 in interest for writers who had been paid late.

See the 2022 WGAW Annual Financial Report (page 5) for total amounts collected by the Residuals Department and Legal Department in 2021, and Legal Department total open cases.

A critical part of the Legal Department’s work has been addressing company efforts to undervalue license fees on which residuals are paid when internally licensing content to online platforms the company also owns. The Guild’s successful resolution of such claims in 2021 resulted in payment of almost $10 million in residuals and interest owed to writers.

These figures don’t include the award announced last week, or other monies collected in 2022. The Residuals Department enforces residuals provisions of the contract by investigating and policing potential under-payment or non-payment, and referring cases not resolved during the investigation to the Guild’s Legal Services Department. The primary function of the Guild’s Legal Services Department is to enforce employer obligations under the WGA’s collective bargaining agreements, normally through the filing of grievances and arbitration claims.

In addition to pursuing claims brought to our attention from writers, the Guild is also continuing to use information provided by franchised agencies to help with MBA enforcement, including late pay. The ultimate goal of this effort is to change studios’ problematic payment practices.