Something to think about:

From Jonathan Handel's blog over at Huffpost. To read the whole thing, click on below...

Multi-Guild Residuals -- Almost Ten Times the Fun

...but here's a little something to chew on while you're choking down your Turkey.

A four-cent per DVD increase sounds like a no-brainer. But in the world of Hollywood unions, four cents is actually almost forty cents. This is true for a simple reason: the WGA isn't the only union in town.

As it turns out, all three guild agreements (WGA, DGA and SAG), plus the IATSE agreement, have similar DVD residual formulas. Any amendment to the WGA's DVD formula will almost certainly be made to the other unions' as well. It's called pattern bargaining; the deal for one is the deal for all -- but with a twist: SAG's formula is three times as large as the WGA's, and the IA's is four and one-half times as large. (The DGA's is the same as the WGA's.) New media formulas can be expected to mirror each other across unions in the same fashion.

So, if writers get a four-cent raise, actors get an extra twelve cents. That's not because actors are three times better than writers, but because there are so many more of them on any given movie or TV program. The actors split the residual among themselves based on a formula that reflects both salary and time worked on the show. Thus, each actor's share is less than the writer(s)' share. (Writers too have to split among themselves when there's more than one writer on a project.)

The DGA raise would match the writers' -- four cents. Most of that would go to the director. Yet, 40% of the DGA membership are below-the-line workers who receive a miniscule share of DVD residuals (less than one-fifth of a penny per DVD). Doubling the formula would make little difference to them, which is one reason why DGA support for a strike over residuals is so tepid.

The IA raise would be 4.5 times the writers' -- an extra eighteen cents per DVD -- yet IA members receive no residuals directly. Instead, the residuals are used to fund the IA's health and pension plans. So, residuals matter to IA members, but in an attenuated way.

Bottom line: whatever increase the writers achieve in DVD or new media has to be multiplied by a factor 9.5 to determine what the studios will be paying out. (9.5 = 1x for the WGA, 1x for the DGA, 3x for SAG, and 4.5x for the IA. If you want to read the contract language for yourself, check out the WGA agreement (Art. 51.C.1.b), DGA agreement (Sec. 18-104), SAG agreement (Sec. 5.2.A.(2)), and IATSE agreement (Art. XXVIII(b)(2)).)\

So, somebody explain to me how the Writer's Guild of America gets 1 cent for every 4.5 cents that IA gets, and yet we, as writers, receive no residuals and (allegedly) and our pension plan is weak in comparison?