Inside Out
By Rebecca Schechter, President, Writers Guild of Canada
Singin' the Blues
Seems like I've been singing the blues since I became Writers Guild president. Actually, it seems like a lot longer than that–since 1999, in fact, when the boom in our industry quickly turned into a bust. But as president, I've learned a few more verses to the song. Turns out, it's not only writers who suffer when there's a precipitous downturn in work. When writers make less, so does the WGC.During boom times, we were able expand staff and programs while building up a reserve fund. The turnaround hit hard two years ago when we started running a deficit. This means cutbacks. It means staff and council have to look at the budget and make difficult decisions. It means we need to ask ourselves why we need a guild in the first place.
Since I've been pondering this for a few years, I'll venture a few answers.
First, we need a guild to negotiate collective agreements. This is the best way I know to guarantee that we'll be treated as professional writers who expect to make a living at what we do. Without minimum terms, every writer would be fighting to be paid decent rates (especially in lean times) in every negotiation for every contract. Next year, we go back into bargaining with the CFTPA and the APFTQ to renegotiate the IPA, the agreement that governs most of our working lives. Even if the producer associations agree to bargain together this time, it promises to be a difficult and expensive session.
Second, we need the guild to enforce our collective agreements. That means police work–making sure producers don't break the rules they've agreed to follow, and chasing them down when they do. Lately, we've ended up in arbitration more often than we'd like. That means paying lawyers, which is necessary, but also expensive.
Third, we need a guild to lobby in Ottawa for screenwriters. Lobbying is especially crucial in times like these, when the institutions that are meant to protect our culture decide to protect the profit margins of broadcasters instead. None of us, alone, has enough clout to get the bureaucrats to pay attention. Even as a guild, we found that strength in numbers is what counts. That's why we formed a coalition with other unions that represent creative artists working in film and TV.
In 2007, both Global and CTV are up for licence renewal at the CRTC. For two years, we've been lobbying the CRTC to reverse the 1999 TV policy (that's when they took away any requirement to air dramatic programming). We've made some progress, but have been stymied by the seven-year license terms. So, as these licenses come up for renewal, we need to launch a lobbying effort that will hit home. It's going to be difficult and expensive, but it's the only way we can hope to turn the current bust back into a boom.
Bargaining, enforcement and lobbying require staff and that's the WGC's biggest expenditure item. Over the last few years, we've allowed the staff to shrink by attrition. We're now down three, which means everyone is loaded up with extra work trying to maintain the same level of service, if not better. Be kind to your staff. They work hard for you.
We also spend money on other services to writers–this magazine (which we've cut back by one issue this year to save money), the Canadian Screenwriting Awards, the website, writing seminars. This category–"other"–is made up mostly of things the guild does to raise its profile. Not surprisingly, they've ended up being the highest profile activities we do. They're also the most fun. In hard times, we need to get down to essentials and the fun stuff ends up on the chopping block before everything else.
I may be presiding over the WGC's first serious reversal of fortune since its founding. But I do not intend to preside over its demise. That's why I plan to keep us focused on bargaining, enforcement and lobbying over the next few years.
I've only been president for 10 months and I'm already tired of this song. Let's hope we can all stop singing the blues before too long.
