Vote Luvh

I'm running for the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild, and since so much of our readership hails from the Southland, maybe one, two, or zero of you would be interested in my Candidate Statement. The election will take place in September, and the candidate statements will be sent out then, so don't think I'm being lazy when you get this exact same one at that time (they were due yesterday). Here it is:

No doubt, the strike was hard. In addition to being a picket coordinator at Sony and then at Fox, I had to get a day job, and my boss in that job turned out to be a massive jerk. But what we got in exchange for our hardships – a deal containing legitimately groundbreaking pathways to some truly great stuff, as well as an unprecedented level of institutional engagement and focus – could turn out to be worth it, so long as we protect and grow our momentum. A solid 2011 deal would bring to life the potential of the one we just signed, and the easiest way to get that is to strengthen our negotiating position now. In my interview with the Nominating Committee, I didn’t realize that I must have said “2011” dozens of times until one of the committee members asked me if there were any “non-2011 deal” issues I cared about. I didn’t really have one. As far as I am concerned, relevance to the 2011 deal is a terrific yardstick for determining whether we’re expending energy on the right things.

ORGANIZING
There are three primary areas of focus I’d have as a Board member. My top priority is organizing reality and animation. I was a contract captain during the Comedy Central campaign, and the lesson I carried away from that, and one that was reinforced during the strike, was the importance of a social connection underlying an organizing effort. It’s not enough to have Guild organizers talking to reality writers – we need some hot writer-on-writer action. I’d like to coordinate this; reality writers will feel more secure and committed if they have regular interaction with scripted writers reaching out to them. We need to aggressively combat the notion that reality isn’t writing –it meets our formal definition of writing. Furthermore, given the amount of features that are animated and the amount of television that is reality, we can’t willingly forgo that leverage.

CAPTAINS SYSTEM
Enhancing our coverage is clearly the only route to expanding the Guild, but there are also opportunities to grow the Guild in what I’d like to call a vertical way – improving participation and education of existing members. There is no better tool for this than the captains system, which as you may or may not know will be continued. Serving as a captain, and in fact a coordinator of captains, gave me a good sense of how to mobilize our membership – education and communication are important, but, to be blunt, it’s also important not to bug people. I think a well-led captains system must balance education and motivation with credibility. I also think a great “peacetime” application of the system comes very much from the shop steward tradition: your captain can serve as a liaison, to help you navigate the Guild and tell you what it can do for you. Improving customer service, so to speak, will be directly useful to members, and it will better our negotiating position in 2011.

POLITICAL OUTREACH
Finally, I am extremely excited about the Guild’s new political operations. I was a part of the Guild’s delegation to the California State Democratic convention in March, and with a few others have begun a Writers Political Committee. This group will lobby elected officials about our issues in exchange for assistance with messagecraft (and inescapably, fundraising). The WGA doesn’t have SEIU’s strength in numbers, but we do have the rare ability to communicate well with mass audiences. Every elected official who hears that they could have Guild members helping them with a stump speech or rapid response is instantly excited. And I think there are real gains to be made in this forum, particularly if we have a federal executive branch that is not hostile to labor. Something like the Employee Free Choice Act, which I grant will take hard work, would make organizing reality and animation much, much easier.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
There are a great many other issues I have strong opinions about – credits, enforcement, and diversity, to name a few – but in the interest of brevity, Ashley Gable and I have put together a website further detailing our views: wga.election.googlepages.com/home*. Ashley is an incredible candidate; she knows more about 2008 deal than anyone I know. I wholeheartedly endorse her candidacy as well as that of David A. Goodman’s.

I’ve never been prouder to be a member of the WGA. Thank you for reading, and I hope to have your support.



* Pickle Nation, this website isn't up yet. But soon!