Apparently there ARE residuals on my work, and they cover more than just me.

...and I feel better knowing that.

(Here comes math. I prepare to be corrected.)

So... apparently, when I write a half hour script, and am paid $7500... management kicks in about $1750 per script into health care. Which means that as an IATSE covered union type, you get full health care for $3500 per year.

Good health care probably costs 5 times that.

What makes up the difference? You guessed it: Residuals that go to the union, not me.

So, going back to the root of all this - the "Greater Good" comment:

How do feel about the fact that freelancers, and people who work on daily call, and short-term employees that work on my productions get covered because of these residuals? Better than I would knowing that money was simply not being collected.

It doesn't mean I'm thrilled with all aspects of TAG, but it does give me some small peace of mind to know that monies being raised on my work, work which COULD NOT have existed without others working on (or fixing, depending on who's leading the discussion), does something for them as well.

Other writers reading this? Kevin? Steve H? Obligatory Angry anonymous guy? Am I right in my numbers?

And if so, why the hell didn't somebody say so 48 comments ago? :)

Obama as a metaphor

Nothing kicks the debate up to 11 like a talk about residuals, huh?

To Steve (and others): As I said, here and there, some of my venom has less venom right now, for a few reasons.

On a larger scale - I know that the 9 scripts I wrote the first season of Yin Yang Yo probably chunked enough hours into the pension to help cover the insurance of 7 additional workers. Not writers, workers.

Seriously, if that's how the hours work, I have to assume IA gets paid on my work and when I go "over" on my hours, that money goes somewhere.

And now I have to think - as a human being, as a person... as someone who makes money in a business that takes so many other people to make happen... is that bad? Am I going to be annoyed about that?

It's an election year. This year, I am voting AGAINST pocket book issues and voting for Barack Obama. (As long as we're mixing apples and oranges). Why? Personal reasons... but voting for Barack WILL affect my pocket book. My taxes WILL go up.

And I wonder: How is that different from my work in IA? Everybody talks about universal health care - that shit's gotta be paid for. Well, I think it's safe to say that at 7500 per six month period, IA health care is pretty much socialized medicine, and pretty much universal. You work in animation, chances are you're going to get it. You work for IA, chances are you're going to get it.

IA covers what - 100k people with health and benefits? I have to assume my hours help with that. So perhaps, on some of this, I have to put my ACTUAL money where my PHILOSPHICAL heart. Unlike every other union, IA is NOT a single issue union. They have writers (which I think they could do a better job servicing) but they have a lot more. Even TAG is not a single issue guild. They have writers (which I *know* they could service better).

We're part of a whole, whether we like it or not.

Which is why I'm starting to feel change needs to come from within, rather than waiting for any other union - or lack of one - to save the day.

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?