1.
Writers Guild of America, East
–
The Writers Guild of America, East is a labor union representing film and television writers as well as employees of television and radio news. The Writers Guild of America, East is affiliated with the Writers Guild of America, together the guilds administer the Writers Guild of America Awards. It is an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists, the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, WGAE had its beginnings in 1912, when the Authors League of America was formed by some 350 book and magazine authors, as well as dramatists. Meanwhile, the Radio Writers Guild was formed in New York, a Television Writers Group within the ALA and a separate group, the Television Writers of America, each began representing writers for the nascent television industry beginning in the late 1940s. In 1951, the ALA reorganized into the Writers Guild of America East and West, the WGAW and WGAE have bargained for writers in movies, TV and radio since 1954. The WGAE became affiliated with the AFL-CIO in 1989, although its sister group WGAW did not join and has not since. On August 27,2006, WGAE reached an agreement with the producers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the strike vote followed the expiration of the guilds then-current contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The strike ceased on February 12,2008
2.
New York City
–
The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
3.
Writers Guild of America, West
–
The Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. It was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, including the Screen Writers Guild, the Screen Writers Guild was formed in 1921 by a group of ten screenwriters in Hollywood angered over wage reductions announced by the major film studios. The group affiliated with the Authors Guild in 1933 and began representing TV writers in 1948, in 1954, the SWG was one of five groups who merged to represent professional writers on both coasts and became the Writers Guild of America, East and West. Howard J. Green and John Howard Lawson were the first two presidents during the SWG era, Daniel Taradash was president of the WGAw from 1977 to 1979. In 2004, Victoria Riskin resigned as WGAw President after being accused by her opponent Eric Hughes during the 2003 election of using a writing contract to maintain her membership status. After Riskins resignation, the U. S. Department of Labor investigated the sham contract, the WGAw entered into a settlement by offering to re-run the election under DOL supervision. A new election was held in September 2004 between Eric Hughes and Daniel Petrie, Jr. which Petrie won, in June 2005, WGAw started a reality rights campaign to allow writers of reality television shows to qualify for guild rights and benefits. The union maintained that the storytellers who conceive the tests and confrontations on such shows were bona fide writers, the Guild also expressed concern the 1988 strike showed that lack of representation in the genre would weaken their future bargaining position. Studio executives maintained that these employees were primarily editors, not writers, as part of this campaign, on September 20,2006 the WGAw held a Los Angeles unity rally in support of the Americas Next Top Model writers strike. President Patric Verrone said, Every piece of media with an image on a screen or a recorded voice must have a writer. In response, Verrone said, as they demanded union representation, the strike vote followed the expiration of the guilds contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The WGAw is governed by its membership, elections for a board of directors are held annually by secret mail-in ballot. Half of the board is elected each year to a term of office. Young served as the Guilds chief negotiator during the 2007 contract negotiations, according to WGAws Department of Labor records since 2006, over half of the guilds total membership is ineligible to vote, comprising the guilds post current, emeritus, and associate members. The WGAw has published its official publication, the journal Written By, which it describes as the magazine of Americas Storytellers, six times a year since 1997
4.
Los Angeles
–
Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
5.
Strike action
–
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances, Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. In most countries, strike actions were made illegal, as factory owners had far more power than workers. Most Western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard or 1981 Warning Strike, official publications have typically used the more neutral words work stoppage or industrial dispute. The first historically certain account of action was towards the end of the 20th dynasty. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid, the Egyptian authorities raised the wages. An early predecessor of the strike may have been the secessio plebis in ancient Rome. In the Outline Of History, H. G. Wells characterized this event as the strike of the plebeians, the plebeians seem to have invented the strike. The strike action became a feature of the political landscape with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, large numbers of people were members of the working class, they lived in cities. By the 1830s, when the Chartist movement was at its peak, in 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by an agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the industrial work force were on strike at its peak – over 500,000 men. The local leadership marshalled a growing working class tradition to organize their followers to mount an articulate challenge to the capitalist. Friedrich Engels, an observer in London at the time, wrote, by its numbers, this class has become the most powerful in England, the English proletarian is only just becoming aware of his power, and the fruits of this awareness were the disturbances of last summer. Karl Marx has condemned the theory of Proudhon criminalizing strike action in his work The Poverty of Philosophy, in 1937 there were 4,740 strikes in the United States. This was the greatest strike wave in American labor history, the number of major strikes and lockouts in the U. S. fell by 97% from 381 in 1970 to 187 in 1980 to only 11 in 2010
6.
WGA screenwriting credit system
–
Since 1941, the WGA has been the final arbiter of who receives credit for writing a theatrical, television or new media motion picture written under the WGAs jurisdiction. A production company that signs the WGA Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement must comply with the WGA rules on writing credits, the system affects reputation, union membership, and income. It affects reputation since some sources list only WGAE or WGAW determined writing credits, John Howard Lawson, the first president of the Screen Writers Guild said, A writers name is his most cherished possession. It is his personality, the symbol of the whole body of his ideas. Membership points are also accrued through employment by, or sale or option to, while all writers are paid when they work, some contracts limit contingent compensation to writers if they are not officially credited. Additionally, only credited writers typically receive residual income from future exploitation of a film on video, pay-per-view, broadcast television, If any participating writer objects to the proposed credits, credit for the film enters arbitration. In addition, if an executive is being proposed for writing credit and there are other, non-production executive participating writers on the project. In arbitration, Guild members review all drafts of the screenplay by each writer, the credit rules differ for theatrical motion pictures and television/new media motion pictures. On a theatrical picture, the applicable rules depend on whether the screenplay is classified as an original screenplay or a non-original screenplay. In the case of a screenplay, the first writer must contribute more than 33% of the screenplay to receive screenplay by credit. A non-original screenplay is a screenplay that is based upon material and all other screenplays that do not qualify as original screenplays. In the case of a screenplay, any writer who contributes more than 33% of the screenplay is entitled to screenplay by credit. There is no heightened percentage for production executives, on a television or new media motion picture, the credit rules are the same regardless of whether the participating writer is a production executive. Any subsequent writer who contributes more than the first writer on a television or new media motion picture is entitled to teleplay by credit. Credit can be apportioned separately for the story, and for the screenplay or teleplay itself when all writers were not equally involved in the creation of both. Story is defined as all writing covered by the representing a distinct from screenplay and consisting of basic narrative, idea. When the same writer or writers are entitled to both Screenplay by and Story by credit or Teleplay by and Story by credit, the credit will read Written by. A writing team is considered a writer, a team is identified by the use of an ampersand between the names of the members of the team
7.
National Writers Union
–
Organized into 17 local chapters nationwide, it has been Local 1981 of the United Automobile Workers, AFL-CIO since merging with them in 1992. NWU is an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists, the NWU seeks to defend the rights of and improve the economic and working conditions for all writers. The union also issues various publications and a journal called American Writer. NWU members are voting members of the UAW and eligible for various benefits offered through the UAW, ultimate power in the NWU rests in the biennial Delegate Assembly, subject to the provisions of the UAWs constitution. Delegates are elected to the assembly by local chapters and serve a term of two years, each chapter is allocated a number of delegates according to the size of its membership. The DA sets over-all union strategy and policy, charters new locals, the National Executive Committee consists of 11 officers directly elected by the membership. The President is paid a salary and the Vice presidents. There is a National Executive Board, consisting of the 11 officers of the National Executive Committee plus the chairs of the 17 local chapters, the NEB meets annually to approve the annual budget and to review the implementation of policies adopted by the Delegate Assembly. In particular, during one attempt, a president was charged with using union funds to promote his campaign. Despite its name, wrote Peterson, on behalf of the NWU and President Jonathan Tasini, petersons position was felt by many members to undermine two decades of work in establishing the NWU as writers legitimate bargaining representative under Federal labor law. The best-known activity of the NWU is probably the 2001 victory in Tasini v, in 2008, NWU joined over 60 other art licensing businesses in opposing both The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008. Known collectively as Artists United Against the U. S, writers Guild of America Official website
