Q: Do Non-American Writers Have To Join The WGA?
A: It depends where you are when you write.
The Artful Writer is visited most frequently by Americans, but we do get a fairly good-sized international readership as well. There are lots of you from Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Finland, Hong Kong…
…well, you’re pretty much from everywhere. Even Latvia.
Many of you have a similar question: if you sell a screenplay to a WGA signatory company, must you join the Guild? Embarrassingly, I’ve gotten the answer to this one wrong in a number of ways, and I’ve spread a bit of bad info in the past, so this post will hopefully set the record straight.
The determining factor when it comes to non-U.S. citizens is location.
The WGA is mostly concerned with jurisdiction, rather than prior membership or national citizenship. Regardless of what your passport says, if you perform the majority of writing services for a signatory while you are in the United States, then you must join the WGA if you’re not already a member, and the work is covered under our Minimum Basic Agreement.
However, if you live in the UK, you may work for a signatory to the WGA without the work being covered under our agreement. The WGA cannot compel you to join or compel the company to abide by the WGA’s collective bargaining agreement. However, you can negotiate to be treated as if you were under WGA jurisdiction! In other words, you can live in England, write a movie for Paramount Pictures from your home in London, and still get residuals and credit protection…but only if you get Paramount to agree to that deal.
If you hop on a jet and fly to New York, hole yourself up in a hotel and write the movie from midtown, then Paramount has to abide by the terms of the MBA.
The one final point to consider is that WGA membership isn’t really something you ever have to worry about choosing. If you meet the terms of membership through the appropriate amount of actual covered work, the WGA compels your membership. If you don’t, then you can’t join anyway.
For those of you writing outside of the United States, if you do sell or option literary material to any company that is a signatory to the WGA, try and negotiate yourself as if terms. The work won’t be officially covered by our MBA, but it’s well worth trying to get some of the goodies that those of us doing covered work get automatically. The company can certainly say “no”, but since they give those terms to thousands of other writers in the U.S. as a matter of course, you may find that they might be willing to bend a little…and give them to you too.
Okay, what if I’m WGC and write in the States — I join the WGA. Now what happens if Paramount wants to hire me in Canada? Can they use their Canadian subsidiary to hire me as a Canadian writer, or do they have to hire me as a US writer under the WGA MBA?
Alex:
The way it seems to work is that Paramount can hire you through their Canadian subsidiary if and only if you are actually doing the majority of the writing on Canadian soil.
In short, it’s highly advantageous for you to be sitting in a room south of the border.
At first blush, a rule set based on physical location seems archaic, but it’s directly tied into the laws governing U.S. labor unions, which can only cover U.S. employees…and “U.S. employee” is defined pretty much as “an employee rendering services in the U.S.”
How are writers on TV shows such as SMALLVILLE and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA covered? Both shoot in Vancouver and I’m fairly sure that the production offices for both are down there as well…
I’m not clear about one’s first deal, even though I know you’ve gone over this before. Could I ask you to explain again?
Let’s take a simple example.
A US, West Coast based writer, doing a first deal for a spec script. The script sells, is made into a feature, and the writer is the sole-credited writer on the film. (And no one else wrote anything else. Although to complicate it a bit, we can say that perhaps it’s a writer/director, which I guess would trigger a credit’s arbitration?)
Does this writer automatically get the credits to qualify for membership? What if the film is non-union? Am I missing something here?
When I’m negotiating for my own scripts, or setting up a production company, how should I set it up to make sure the writer is taken care of, in terms of making sure the get their WGA credits?
How does any of this change on a documentary? Are scripts for documentary’s subject to WGA?
Thanks.
Jessie:
Don’t work about whether or not a script gets produced. Don’t worry about whether or not you get credit. The key here is employment.
When you sell a screenplay in the U.S. to a signatory to the WGA, then you receive the credits necessary to qualify for membership. Receiving an option on a screenplay earns you half the credits necessary.
If you sell or option material to a non-signatory, you earn no credits towards membership.
If you are an employer in the U.S. and you want to a) hire WGA writers or b) make sure the non-WGA writers you hire earn credits toward becoming WGA writers then…
…you need to become signatory to the WGA’s collective bargaining agreement.
If you vist wga.org and select “If You’re An Employer” you’ll see how to do that.
Thanks for posting on this subject Craig. You’re a star. :)
Craig,
Got it. Employment, not production. That’s the clearest thing I’ve ever heard.
Selling the script gets you membership. Selling the option gets you half the credits.
And if you’re on the production end (ie: if you’re a writer/director) then you’d need to have your production company become a legitimate WGA signatory, and then have it buy the copyright to the screenplay from… yourself, thus qualifying yourself for membership.
Thanks again.
And my question about a documentary script still stands…
If a documentary script for a feature is purchased by a WGA signatory, do you get full credits - and thus, qualify for membership?
(I could see this happening either before the feature is shot, or afterwards, almost in an editor’s role, trying to make sense of existing footage, much as the reality TV series writers do.)
Craig, I vaguely remember you could join the Guild if you had credits on a picture that was released theatrically in the States. (I’d check it out, but the WGA site seems to be funky today.)
Also, for completeness, you can join the Guild easily if you organize your show!
Craig: You commented that:
“If you meet the terms of membership through the appropriate amount of actual covered work, the WGA compels your membership” (My emphasis)
On the other hand, a chap who had been on the membership committee for quite a few years (‘SAM’) had a different take.
He pointed out that “A non-Guild member can work for anyone, including MBA signatories and is protected just as though s/he was a Guild member. However, a non-member can’t collect the pension funds or use the health plan. …. No one HAS to join the Guild. The point system puts you in a position where you CAN join.”
The conversation is buried part way down (about Post 20) on this page: www.tvwriter.com/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID8/953.html
I appreciate that your experience may be more recent than SAM’s, but good sense stops me from just dismissing the interpretation of an ex-membership committee member.
What would be the source of the confusion ?
Mac
Mac:
SAM is wrong. And so was Brody.
What you can do is decline membership and become a financial core non-member, but you still have to pay dues (albeit it at a slightly reduced rate…something like a 3% discount from the full rate) and you absolutely do collect Pension & Health and residuals and essentially work and tithe dues like any non-member (except that you can also work for non-sigs).
In other words, you’re a non-member who looks and sounds a lot like a member.
But non-Guild members who haven’t resigned their membership cannot just work for sigs if they’ve met our membership requirements. Nope. They have to join.
I’m confused. Do I need to have a work visa to sell a screenplay in the US? If I recieve money from a US company for work done (ie. my script) then would this be illegal if I didnt have a Work Visa? Please help.
what happens if i’m a non us citizen and my script (a tv series in my country) is sold for remake in the us? what credit do i get? am i intitled to any royalties?
If a non US film/script is sold to a US studio for remake, can the foreign writer of the orginal script get scriptwriters credit on the remake “as if” he was covered by WGA regulation?
Assuming that the original screenwriter was employed by a company that wasn’t signatory to the WGA, then they would only be eligible for a source material, or “based on a screenplay by” credit.
That credit confers no residuals or separated rights.