Top Hollywood attorneys say, yes, studios could be looking for a way to offload deals to cut costs — but there’s a ton of confusion regarding specifics.
Under Article 7 of the WGA Minimum Basic Agreement, the writers’ employment agreements at struck companies “shall be deemed automatically suspended, both as to service and compensation, while such strike is in effect.”
Hollywood’s top attorneys working with writers and hyphenates have been putting in overtime trying to help clients understand a situation that has seemingly endless variables. “Clients want to know, ‘Can I be suspended? Can I be terminated?’ Generally speaking, ‘Yes, you can,’ is the answer,” says one talent lawyer. “Most of the studios’ standard terms and conditions give the studio a right automatically to suspend and to terminate without any waiting period. That’s by and large the rule.
Another talent lawyer notes that there’s been wide variation in how companies are managing their talent relationships: “Some studios are at least getting on the phone to say, ‘Here’s what we’re thinking,’ while others are dropping letters in the mail or email, and that doesn’t always land the best.” Of course, the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement is exactly what it says it is: a minimum. Studio boilerplates may vary, and some talent may have negotiated protections, but attorneys say the latter is rare. “Since the 2007 strike, studios have made these suspension and termination provisions basically nonnegotiable, and the only ones that tend to get protections that aren’t in the pre-negotiated version of their standard terms are the 800-pound gorillas,” says another top talent lawyer.
There’s generally consensus that for directors, producers and actors, a WGA strike is a force majeure event — but when it comes to writers, it’s muddier. Talent reps — and even Hollywood labor lawyers — are split as to whether a strike by your own union invokes force majeure. When writers were the ones who called the
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