LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) Despite Abrams Artists AGency Chairman Adam Bold offering to drop packaging fees and any affiliation with related production entities, the sop thrown to the Writers Guild was not acceptable.
Bold and WGA West executive director David Young talked for 20 minutes yesterday but could not come to an agreement, according to Deadline Hollywood. If things had worked out differently, the Abrams Artists Agency would have been the first mid-sized agency to break ranks with the Association of Talent Agents in an 11-week fight between the WGA and agencies.
“Honestly, I’m disappointed, sad, and perplexed by this decision,” Bold said in a statement. “I expected that we would have a common goal, which was to put people back to work in the interim while the litigation is going on, but instead it seems that the WGA has other priorities. I don’t have the desire nor the resources or energy to spend trying to engage in negotiations on the sort of agreement that a union makes with the trade association. I’m not a labor negotiator. I’m not pretending to try and solve the bigger issue. Instead, I thought that I had a reasonable and fair workaround for our clients and staff to earn a living until they work out those bigger issues. We simply took the agreement that had been in place for 42 years and made an addendum removing the most contentious and egregious issues.”
Deadline asked Bold if he would talk to the Guild again and Bold responded, “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any point.”
The details offered to the Guild are as follows:
- This addendum agreement shall extend the term of the expired AMBA and apply it to Abrams during its term which shall be from the date of execution hereof to the effective date of any industry-wide agreement between the WGA and the Association of Talent Agents (“ATA”).
- During the term hereof, Abrams shall not participate in the so called “packaging” of WGA-covered projects.
- During the term hereof, Abrams will refrain from engaging or investing in affiliated production activity.
- It is the intention of the parties that this addendum agreement shall terminate and be of no further force or effect upon the execution of a new agreement between the WGA and ATA, to which Abrams shall be bound.
- The WGA agrees that Abrams shall have the benefit of any better terms or conditions which WGA extends to any other talent agency during the term of this agreement.
- Upon execution hereof, WGA member writers shall be free to be and remain clients of Abrams and WGA shall not interfere with Abram’s representation of WGA member writers.”
“I appreciate your effort but I hope you understand that we cannot agree to what you are proposing,” Young reportedly wrote to Bold. “There are many reasons, but a fundamental one is that we’ve now negotiated a whole, new AMBA with many terms that are better than the old agreement. We opened the contract after 43 years because writers don’t like it. We cannot make an interim deal that takes us back where we were in 1976.”
