Richert. Versus. WGA
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ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE
“Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Halle Salassie
Nov. 29/ 2017
Honorable John Shepard Wiley jr. Sets L A, Superior Court date for Richert V. WGAw firing of Neville Johnson.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES AND DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW SAG RECORDS WERE SEALED--AND LEFT SEALED BY THE CLASS ATTORNEY IN SPITE OF A JUDGE'S CONCERN THAT THEY BE OPENED FOR ACTORS' REVIEW
PREFACE TO "IS SAG-AFTRA GOOD FOR AMERICA" -- THE VIEW FROM 2003
IN 2003 my Dante vision of hell in Hollywood was a merger of the talent unions with the teamsters and non-talent unions in a block, with teamster power backing strikes for union jurisdiction increases, using brutish force as if to help the vastly disorganized, individualized, entrepreneurial actors and writers achieve aims they didn’t want or need to satisfy larger union goals. Already in 2003 I knew the SAG representatives had joined the Teamster’s to use them as bodyguards, basically, since SAG reps were so hatred on sets they feared to go there.
After costly personal experiences with the WGA and SAG both as writer and actor and producer, I figured that the “creatives” being wrapped in the arms of the AFL-CIO mentality (I’d read that 26 US Attorneys investigating Hoffa had been reassigned during the Bush administration, as I recall) would be like Ellen DeGeneres wrapped in the arms of a WWE wrestler who doesn’t think she’s funny.
If the United StatesTeamsters were to join a SAG-AFTRA strike in sisterly support, in theory, the entire US truck network could shut down. Or only Hollywood. A paranoid feast for the professional in me, wanting to make movies in the future without interruption or insurrection.
I worried that teamsters driving actors to the sets of films written by writers not yet on strike would chill the windfall-backers needed for movie making, that drumbeats drive off investors who don’t care whether writers are “middle class” or not (when the hell did it become necessary or even possible for screenwriters to become middle class or any class to satisfy union precepts of what writers should be instead of what they actually are, which is Other than economic data).
If the television actors also went on strike simultaneously with the movie actors and broadcast announcers, who would tell the news? Write the news? -- Allow the news that’s written to be read as written without input from the WGAw's Tony Segall, Etc. who had been lying to a New York Judge to escape my lawsuit.
-- So I sent the following memo, you might call it, to the few people I knew at the time, like Dennis Hayden and several actors, also probably Dave McNary who would’ve written back “Thanks.”
Tom Bower wrote a pertinent critique. Otherwise no response except from Dennis.
The letter is ten years old, but I say it still applies.
Back then, the proposed name for the SAG-AFTRA merger was “AIMA.” There was even a constitution drawn up between the two unions, the AIMA Constitution.
Today it’s called SAG-AFTRA.
Now my latest worry is that the sister unions and the sister studios under MPAA backed by the teamsters link up with the big brother agencies like Ari’s WME and create a bar code for every face and voice and sentence and song flowing through CISCO or VERIZON on the internet, collecting “dues” from the artists who would post videos or songs and removing the posts of those who don’t join the studio-union-agency-network-provider supercorp system.
Yeah, I know. Ridiculous and speculation, no doubt.
Probably I should relax. China will bring it all into focus later on.
Below was my speculation in 2003… (I have added "SAG-AFTRA" as the merged unions did not use the AIMA moniker; they also destroyed the iconic lovely Tragedy/Comedy mask historic SAG logo in favor of kitchen detergent graphics. No longer that pretty blue face on the residual checks; no longer the residual checks, either.)
FROM THE DESK OF:
William Richert
Santa Monica, California
MAY 29, 2003
TO: ALL INTERESTED PARTIES
The coming “monopoly” of a MegaUnion.
SUBJECT: THE MERGER OF SAG AND AFTRA: WILL AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] BE GOOD FOR AMERICA?
An actor/writer/director thinks the merger of the two most powerful Hollywood Unions will unleash a potentially destabilizing and revolutionary force capable of spiraling beyond the limits of members’ civil rights.
“Partnership for Power” or Instrument of Repression: ALLIANCE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ARTISTS [SAG-AFTRA]: Trustworthy, or Anti-Trust?
There has never been an Entity on Earth with the Power of the envisioned Alliance of International Media Artists.
It is no wonder the President of the AFL-CIO flies to Los Angeles to “advise” the Presidents of SAG and AFTRA. President Sweeney will become the true leader of the most pervasively controlling and politically powerful union in the history of the world. The question is: will this be good for the country?
CREATING THE BEAST
There is a beast emerging out of chaos in the darkness with 13 million heads and it is heading first for Hollywood, and then the world.
The name of this creature is AIMA [SAG-AFTRA], or Alliance of International Media Artists. It will be composed of those familiar unions SAG and AFTRA connected to dozens of other unions, including the Teamsters and the multitude of Unions comprising the American Federation of Labor numbering millions.
The power of this beast will be unlike any power known before on earth, and this is not exaggeration. Neither the Radical Muslims or the Cold War Russians could shut off American radios or cause our country’s television sets to go blank, but AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] could do it in a heartbeat.
If it comes into being – and the Presidents of the unions involved are engaged in all kinds of feverish activities to ensure that it will -- this union will control the people who read the news along with the people who play the heroes and the villains and the people who turn on the studio lights and drive the trucks and funnel the electricity into the homes and farms across America.
If AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] chooses to strike, and there has never been a union with power which has not chosen to strike, AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] could shut down the nation’s communication systems as a whole and prevent the citizens from receiving news, vital transportation information, entertainment and simply the flow of human voices over the many devices we now rely on for communication. AIMA [SAG-AFTRA], like all unions, provides its own police and its own judges and its own Court of Appeals within the framework of its Constitution.
Not every Union member is aware that Union regulations and arbitrations can override Federal and State law.
I myself discovered this the hard way: when any worker signs a Union contract, he or she gives up certain rights in civil lawsuits; her or she actually loses civil rights. Thus AIMA [SAG-AFTRA], with stronger prerogatives over broadcasters and television journalists than have ever been known or enacted, will legally be outside oversight of the U.S. court system when conducting many of its activities.
Of the 13 “Goals” the new Alliance of International of Media Artists has set for itself, nearly all have political and social implications. The formation of an entity like this one enters new and unmapped territory, just as the overnight creation of a new Nation creates new territory. And this Nation has an Army of 13 million workers.
It is not an unthinkable leap to conjure a near-universal nightmare wherein SAG-AFTRA demands a strike for its film actors; and at once SAG actors are joined in sympathy by the Teamsters and then AFTRA joins in too in “sisterhood” and the next thing we know, the tv set in the living room is dark and the tv set in the bedroom is dark and there is nothing but canned music on the radio. A blackout of broadcast communications in the United States would be a chilling work stoppage of democracy’s life blood: communication between citizens.
Until the present moves by President Sweeney at the AFL-CIO, who appears to be the most senior advocate and relentless sponsor of this merger, a legal shut-down of the flow of information in America would be unthinkable. After 9/11 there is almost nothing that is unthinkable. If there were controversy or violence – remember, at least one man died in the last SAG strike against advertisers – the FBI could be called in by the Justice Department to enforce the rights of the interstate strikers. As even non-SAG members were brought before “Discipline Committees” during the recent SAG strike, it is not hard to imagine a world where listening to a radio would be considered scab subversion, if there were stations to listen to during a radio strike. Anyone attempting a private broadcast who was a member of AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] or any other AFL-CIO affiliate could be brought before Union juries and blacklisted forever from holding any future union job.
This happens today with SAG and AFTRA and the Teamsters and it could happen in that near future should AIMA[SAG-AFTRA] take charge of the Hollywood Unions, lining them up along with all the other Affiliates of the AFL-CIO throughout the United States.
The merger between SAG and AFTRA is called a “partnership for power” but it is much more than a partnership, since 13 million OTHER workers will be joined together with AIMA [SAG-AFTRA].
This is a quasi-government with legal powers even Washington is denied, and without the built-in court protections afforded non-union citizens. I remember James Hoffa saying how the Teamsters could shut down the roads of America and therefore the ability of the country feed itself; the very roads of America would be part of a siege. This was the Senior Hoffa’s measure of Union power, and his Union is just as powerful today. But that’s nothing compared to controlling Radio and Televison and Film. SAG already has the power to shut down film production and series production and television commercial production not only in the U.S., but under Rule One, across the globe.
AFTRA, when it has struck networks, was only able to shut down parts of news operations. That’s when we discovered how important our newscasters are, and news writers are, and a free flow of information is. During a strike by the 200,000 AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] members, the shut down could be total.
Teamsters would guard the gates to protect SAG workers, whom they represent. AIMA’s [SAG-AFTRA’S]most powerful CEO will be called Executive Director, and his or her power will be granted by an entity known as the Council. Now, this is not a benign entity if you consider what could happen if this Council decides to start a war for any one of three Affiliates, a war of course, involving financial benefits to its members. This Supreme Council controls what goes before the voting membership, and has the Constitutional power to overrule the Affiliates. It is not unusual for a SAG strike to last five months or more. One doesn’t have to look very far at the abuses of power in today’s world to imagine what might happen if AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] were to use its power without concern for the millions of others who depend on television and movies for art, information, and livelihood.
AIMING AT THE BODY OF AIMA [SAG-AFTRA]
This organization, heavily promoted by SAG and AFTRA, would start out with roughly 250,000 members. That is a small number when AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] is matched against the other AFL-CIO “Sister” unions, but these 250,000 “performers and artists and broadcasters” help create and articulate and communicate the information needed for the function and survival of our country, our culture, our society and even the human species.
Even to contemplate a blackout of the airways in a national broadcaster strike is to contemplate a darkness darker than a dark Bagdad night. Think of it: A national black out of information. Even some newspaper reporters hold WGA or SAG or AFTRA membership. Oh, I may be leaning towards the most dramatic outcome; but it is not science fiction to imagine a strike so big our entire country “goes dark” for days or weeks or even months, leaving a confused and angry and impotent population to look to Congress, while Congress ponders in the dark.
We see the tremendous negative impact on the culture of dramatic television programs recently being shut down or hobbled as the result of the threat of a WGA strike.
The threat of a strike against all television could provoke such fright in the small numbers of global conglomerates which own these vast communication entities that, out of fear, companies might act against their own best financial interests and, even, the best interest of the public at large.
There are 13 political and social Goals listed in the new AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] Constitution which invite activism in places that exceed the province of simple employment protection and collection of benefits.
Without their consent, the SAG actors could wind up being part of political demonstrations and movements which have nothing to do with acting or singing but everything to do with dockworkers and port access or assembly lines in Detroit.
THIS IS NOT SHOW BUSINESS
There is a tendency to think that what happens in Hollywood doesn’t really happen, but is only make-believe, since everybody always seem to be getting richer and younger both at once. True. There are extremely rich studios, but only six remaining. They are all owned by giant corporations, of which there seem to be six. On ET it seems there are only six movie stars. And pretty soon there will be just one big union to deal with the “employees.”
DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHERE SHERMAN IS?
This merger raises issues which would most certainly involve anti-trust suits and require Congressional approval if it were a proposed merger of AT&T and VERIZON; but because these are unions, and there are emotional issues, and the press treats the fights among SAG members with only half a glance. Actors always make noise, right? And they’re kind of leftist, more or less, sometimes, especially the rich ones. What has their business got to to with the “real” world of the big players like Murdock and Turner Imagine the uproar if a merger were announced between AOL TIME WARNER and THE NEWS CORPORATION! Whew. But this SAG/AFTRA stuff? That’s no five alarm fire… No? Watch out.
THE ACTOR LOVES HIS ROLE. THE UNION LOVES ITS JURISDICTION
Hollywood Unions often seem to be on the side of the “little guy” -- even while the “little guy” is almost extinct in Hollywood, and while the salaries may have gone up as a result of the SAG strike, the opportunity to get a salary to begin with has gone down.
In the world of the union, “Jurisdiction” is the highest goal. Union Management will al
ways accept the possibility of fewer jobs if their “Jurisdiction” is increased. The SAG & AFTRA Presidents talk about how they used to fight, but will fight no more. That would also be true if United Airlines and American Airlines or if the two largest electric companies in the West decided to merge, or if Boeing and McDonnel Douglas wanted to merge. Congress would demand to know if these mergers beneficial for the citizens at large (American citizens are those folks President Bush likes to call “consumers.)
There is no similar media scrutiny of the SAF/AFTRA merger, or loud Senate questions about the role of Sweeney and the AFL-CIO is playing in guiding and structuring this merger, with AFL-CIO lawyers sitting in on SAG meetings and making public statements urging members of both unions to vote yes. I hope someone “big” checks into this, and right away, like yesterday.
A merger between SAG and AFTRA will create anti-competitive unions with the power to change the course of our society as much as a dam can change the course of a river – no, even more, the power to change ALL rivers. Make no mistake. This is not a “Hollywood Issue.” This is a serious power play, which will impact the daily lives and incomes of people in Los Angeles and New York and Cities In Between in ways much harsher than any foreign war, impacting our homes, our economics and our access to the world at large.
SHOULD BUTTERFLIES STAY FREE?
Along the lines of the Zen story about the way the flight of a butterfly in Japan can affect winds in seaport in Seattle, I happen to think that the SAG strike against giant corporate advertisers a while back took out the kind of risk money that corporations had been using to promote themselves.
By not hiring actors, yet still staying in businesses, many companies decided to stabilize their bottom lines instead spending for the future. This helped to create a psychology of “stabilization” as opposed to “risk.” This led, in my own wobbly conjectural journey, to the bursting of the “bubble” and the fall of the faith in a dazzling future on the part of banks and investors and that’s why our U.S. economy is in the shitter: it’s the commercial actors fault.
Or not. How would I know?
The only bubble I really know is the one I write in. Still, it’s a clear glass-like bubble and I sense a new kind of power forming in the AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] Union that could create the formation of a sinister self-interested monopoly on the transmission and communication of human thought in ways no corporation or network would be capable of. All networks, all cable, all mass sources of information and news would be under the thumb of AIMA [SAG-AFTRA], should the entity decided to use its power to strike. So far, every Hollywood Union has.
FAR FETCHED?
Does this sound far fetched? Hardly. Don’t deduce from this, please, that I think unions are bad. I just think they have power enough already, and some of this power could be put to use to simply enlarge the job pool.
I wouldn’t be able to sit here and write this if I hadn’t had the benefits of union membership and union Pension and Welfare. But there is already a scandal among the proponents of AIMA concerning the AFTRA pension and welfare program that is being hushed up. Add to this the recent revelations and internet chatter about multi-million dollar secret SAG studies concerning a downside to the merger, along with “leaks” from Management to Membership.
All of this sounds like dirty government tricks, not legitimate Union interests. I am writing to sound the alarm, to alert some in the media who have voice to urge workers and throughout the industry to pay attention to what is happening under our noses before we are all wearing new AIMA [SAG-AFTRA] hats without knowing exactly how that happened to us.
THIS LETTER IS ALMOST OVER
To this end I am forwarding this rather long and perhaps repetitive letter to writers and thinkers and journalists whose work I am familiar with, and who have far greater reach than I have. I wish were shorter but I feel an urgency here that I must respond to or forever wonder if I might have made some kind of difference when thinking I could not make a difference. Along with the foregoing I am sending my last letter to Tom Bower, an actor and producer who cares about SAG and SAG history and even such non-entertaining issues like pension and welfare.
Thanks for listening.
Cheers, Bill Richert
SAG, WGA, DGA Veteran
williamrichert.com
I sent the following letter to Tom Bower after reading the McNary piece in Variety about SAG protesters. Tom Bower is one of those SAG die-hards that John Connolly called “outsiders” in your article.
TO TOM BOWER
FR BILL RICHERT
May 28, 2003
Dear Tom,
I am sending you some raw data & observations relating to the fundamental changes in the life of Screen Actors Guild members which will occur when or if SAG joins the International Alliance of Media Artists “AIMA.”
In the meantime, here are some of my observations about what I believe is underneath the entire push for a SAG/AFTRA merger, beyond the immediate furor over health insurance, which obviously comes only after the ability to work occurs. You may not agree with me on all this, but since you are the only human to return any of my letters over the past 15 years to SAG, you get to be the audience. Here are some abridgments:
WHAT MEANS POWER? WHOSE POWER IS IT?
1.) President Gilbert’s constant assertion that SAG is without adequate “power” is not proven by the facts. Yet getting power is the underlying mover for the entire push for a merger. It is a bogus issue, and misleads the membership by creating fear. One only need glance at SAG’s most recent display of “power,” the strike against advertisers, to see that the singular power of SAG not only changed the way advertisers spend money, but impacted the daily lives of the near-million Los Angeles residents who derive at least some income from the day-by-day working commercial actor. The Mayor of Los Angeles, during the strike, estimated that the city was losing as much as one billion dollars a day. In ancillary damage, thousands of workers in SAG, AFTRA, IATSE, DAG and the WGA (commercials have to be written) lost short-term health benefits and, in many cases, never found work at all. The economic benefits to SAG members lost during the last display of SAG power will never be recovered. SAG has power aplenty without another “power” player. In fact, if AFRA were such a great “power” partner, there would be no doubts about AFTRA’s pay structures or health plans. If SAG were to burp today about a strike at the next contract expiration, you can be assured that some movies or series set to employ SAG actors would be shelved. President Gilbert is using a cheap scare tactic when she says SAG lacks power and needs to merge with AFTRA and AFRA. SAG has enourmous power. It is the use of power that is a question here.
WHAT HAS SAG TO DO WITH AFTRA’S LOWER PAY RATES?
2.) President Gilbert's ongoing statements to SAG members, when not addressing the “feasibility” of a merger between SAG & AFRTRA Pension and Health programs, declaim about the inequity between actors being paid for working with the new digital technology and actors being paid for film. President Gilbert decrys the fact that videotape programs, digital or otherwise, pay less than the actors get for filmed shows. President Gilbert is generous in her concern for AFTRA taped contracts, who she says are being exploited by the new digital technology. If her worry is for the jobs of AFTRA actors in the multitude of soap operas and hour-long taped programs which are the mainstay of daytime television – giving jobs to both SAG and AFTRA talent – she must provide evidence of some study of what would happen to the overall employment for daytime actors under AFTRA and SAG contracts if they were to suddenly adopt SAG pay schedules under the new union AIMA. It is not only the recording medium of digital or film that applies daytime soaps. Soap actors, by nature of the work itself, must work long hours each day to turn out 60 or 90 minutes of drama or comedy, sometimes getting pages of dialogue the night before taping. This is a different business than “film.” At SAG standard rates of upwards of $600 per day plus overtime and meal penalties, and the additional salaries of DGA members and Teamsters which come along with the enforcement of SAG contracts, the entry-level actor on a daily soap could earn upwards of half a million to a million dollars per year plus additional costs for pension and welfare not only for the actor, but the DGA and Teamsters who come with the “package”. This may sound great on the surface, but you can bet that the number those employed in the casts of Soaps would decline in direct proportion to the profitability of the shows. This would mean higher pay for a few, but fewer jobs overall. SAG actors would no longer work in soaps differently from AFTRA because all actors would be AIMA. Therefore, the decline in work would be uniform, affecting both SAG and AFTRA. Does this really benefit present day AFTRA or SAG actors? Downsizing has already happened in the motion picture industry, even as the average studio budgets hit 80 million. Films that once had giant casts with many roles exist no longer, with the plumb roles and big bucks concentrated in the few “name” actors. This syndrome could easily alter the whole of daytime television, resulting in soap casts of big names and fewer plot lines employing fewer actors. Daytime television might even become like nighttime television, with far more “reality” shows employing few or no actors or writers. WGA already has the kind of cross-jurisdiction President Gilbert wants for SAG. WGA President John Wells, who engineered a defacto strike of the WGA not long ago, won some gains for writers already working, but hardly any writers benefited because all their jobs disappeared. There are far fewer writers employed in dramas or comedies on television today than when John Wells started his tenure. Mr. Wells can argue that in some ways his tactics were a success. He himself, as a producer, now earns roughly 120 million times the amount earned by 85 percent of the other members of his union.
IS FEASIBILITY THE MOST DESIRABLE ATTRIBUTE IN A PARTNERSHIP?
3.) In a recent letter to SAG membership, the two Presidents of SAG/AFTRA jointly wrote that the discovery of irregularities in the flow of information about a financial feasibility study called The Mercer Report was actually the result of manipulation on the part of “management,” the Presidents assert wants to scuttle the SAG/AFTRA merger. In fact the revelations about the Mercer report may from SAG’s own Trustees, whose job it is to represent the membership of SAG above all other interests, including Union management. The Mercer report cost SAG one and ½ million dollars to prepare (at least.) Yet, there was no study at all of making the present SAG health plan more viable, or to find ways to bring new investment to Hollywood community for increased work. President Gilbert and President Connolly act as one in saying that there is “feasibility” in making the merger work. There is no mention by President Gilbert that the present SAG Pension and Health Fund has been an industry standard for years. It has been fought for by long years of labor. It has 209 million dollars in credit. President Gilbert of SAG, on the same page and in partnership with President Connolly of AFTRA, says that the benefits of the merger will be good for SAG health funds and cost less and provide more. SAG website documents say that when the Mercer Report is concluded, sometime after the SAG/AFTRA merger, the report is sure to say that the merger was better for SAG members. This is an affront to decades of work on the present SAG health plans. It envisions a smooth move in a new union of which SAG will be a 1/3 affiliate and the final control of SAG's money and health plans will reside with a council of three Affiliate Presidents, SAG being only one of them. It is beyond comprehension why President Gilbert would participate in the expenditure of millions of dollars for an inconclusive study with a disputed outcome, when the money could be better spent making any improvements to the present plan, and searching out creative ways for SAG to extend the present benefits of current members. President Gilbert and President Connolly have not disclosed the fact that in 2002 AFTRA Pension and Welfare had to pay out $8.5 million in a lawsuit which claimed that AFTRA Trustees were not acting in the interests of the membership. To anybody watching this or reading about this, it is clear that the merger agenda on the part of the two Presidents is being marshaled along with the support of mostly “silent” other partners, like Sweeny of the AFL-CIO and whoever is the president of the 3rd Affiliate, AFRA, a union I first heard about when reading the AIMA Constitution. A future state of these unions, which does not yet exist, nonetheless takes precedent over the reality that SAG today is powerful and healthy, with a cash reserve in its health plan 20 times that of AFTRA. Any study of the new AIMA Constitution shows that the merger of these three unions will be complex and perhaps more divisive among their memberships than any confrontation with “management/producers/studios” has ever been in history. SAG is a powerful union in its own right. Its membership is suffering a loss of benefits because fewer actors are working in fewer scripted films or Network series. When (if) jobs return, so will the benefits for the SAG health programs, which at their best apply only to 25-30 percent of the membership. Not only does President Gilbert fail to inform the SAG voters about AFTRA's court case, but also for many months the SAG President has shared joint stationery with AFTRA and joint letters with AFTRA. She already engages in partnership duties and implements policies which SAG members have not yet voted for. This is a defacto partnership with AFTRA. This is an abuse of power.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WEAKNESS
4.) We know from the stock market that there is a psychology of investment and return. SAG is being demoralized by conflict which increases the feeling of powerlessness among its members. Said Claude-Levi Strauss, “powerlessness corrupts.” The entire stated motivation for this merger – that it is a “partnership for power” – implies powerless on the part of the participants as separate entities. “Feasibility” for a partnership is the lowest of reasons for a life-changing bond, in fact it is not a reason at all. This assertion of weakness is per se a kind of failure of the will on the part of SAG leadership. President Gilbert says that she and the present Union management will not able to sit across from “management” at the future contract negotiations and feel “powerful,” even with the backing of 110,000 actors. Apparently SAG will feel “powerful” only with the additional clout broadcasters and newscasters and sportscasters and daytime drama stars, with each of their own differing needs. SAG's proclaimed lack of power starts at the top, with the elected President. To say that SAG has not enough power is to create a climate of fear and intimidation among SAG membership, especially when the statement is made by two union Presidents at once, on the same letterhead.
5.) President Gilbert and President Connolly, by placing their logos side by side on their mutual stationery, suggest that they will be the two partners in a SAG and AFTRA merger.
6.) This is a huge message, and it is a huge hoax. When SAG joins AFTRA the SAG actors will go from having 100 percent of the say in their affairs to having a 33 1/3 percent actual say in their affairs, and SAG may be overruled. All power in AIMA rests with the 3 President Council, made up of AFTRA, SAG and AFRA. The boards of these respective unions may vote and suggest, but the 3 President Council and the Executive Director of AIMA have the final say in all matters.
7.) And what if, let us say, the coming reports show SAG was better off without the Merger? Too late. The only way SAG could find its way out of the grip of AIMA would be with a vote of 66 percent of the various boards and Presidents of the three unions. However, even this “vote” would be the subject of the review of the Council, which has the final say under the AIMA Constitution. In short, if SAG signs on to this merger, it won’t be long before all SAG actors will be AIMA actors, and all creative talent will become “performers” with all rights and privileges controlled by the AIMA. This is a brave new world and as much study should be devoted to the reality of that as to the reality of that one controversial part of it, the health component.
8.) Not only should there be full and complete disclosure of all studies paid for by the membership of SAG, but there should be full and complete disclosure of all memos, letters and meetings between SAG, AFTRA and Sweeny of the AFL-CIO.
9.) The SAG membership is being railroaded and needs to know why.
FROM ‘THE ALLIANCE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ARTISTS CONSTITUTION’
ARTICLE I: To the extent that any provision of an Affiliate or Local Branch Constitution and By-Laws or Rule conflicts with aprovision of this Constitution and any amendment thereto, this Constitution shall govern. Each Affiliate Constitution and By-Laws and each Local Branch Constitution and By-Laws shall contain a provision to the same effect.
D. There shall be three (3) Affiliates of the Union known as the Screen Actors Guild
(“SAG”), the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (“AFTRA”)
and the American Federation of Recording Artists (“AFRA”). Each of these
Affiliates has been created based on the nature of the work performed by its
members under collective bargaining agreements covering such work.
And, if SAG decides it made a mistake and wants to get out of AIMA? Not a chance:
A. The Union may be dissolved by resolution of the Council only if ratified by a two-thirds (2/3) majority of the Boards of at least two (2) of the Affiliates and thereafter by two-thirds (2/3) of the Union members in good standing voting in a referendum (one [1] vote per member).
It ought to be kept in mind that in the above instance of 1 voter per member, SAG members will be in the minority, substantially, as members of only 1 Affiliate of AIMA, that formerly independent group of Actors known as The Screen Actors Guild. SAG will be no more in charge of its own destiny.
It seems to me that SAG should think more than once or twice before signing on to this very binding contract. Membership should demand and get all related materials, and should know who is really running SAG if the leadership is looking for more “power,” before any ballots are sent out.
This June, days away, the “power” in question will appear to be in the hands of SAG voters. If the vote takes place and is close, then the review of the SAG vote will include forces from AIMA and AFTRA and AFRA and AFL-CIO. This could put SAG in the kind of situation the Democrats and Republics were in during the last election. There would occur a continuation of the never-ending situation which exists right now: namely, a defacto merger between the Presidents of SAG and AFTRA with the same kind of feeling of powerlessness among the membership. In my view, the vote should be canceled because of the gravity of the unanswered questions.
That’s it for now, Tom. You may not agree with some of these points, but it’s hard not to get all fired up about what is happening to SAG, which is about give up its soul and its heart and its history to become a part of the International Alliance of Media Artists under the umbrella of the AFL-CIO. The Artist part of the new name may be correct, but this “international alliance” means that SAG will lose autonomy and identity forever. SAG will lose all of its power, fait accompli. That may not be in best interests of the very special SAG artists.
Thanks for your kind attention.
Regards,
Bill Richert
From: fcbfilms@hotmail.com
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Subject: Letter to Judge in Writers' Class Action
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 04:21:52 +0000
DEAR MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN WRITER, DIRECTOR AND ACTOR CLASS ACTIONS OF 2012:
ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF:
I am the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit WILLIAM RICHERT vs. WRITER’S GUILD OF AMERICA et. al. (BC339972) with related cases against the Director’s union and Screen Actor’s union – three largely unknown lawsuits about “foreign levies” which have been adjudicated in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
The cases are “settled” according to the parties signed agreements, but the truth is they are not settled, they are on fire, smoking and roiling with sealed-up falsehoods and deceit and false accountings.
The outcome of these lawsuits now being re-examined in the LA SUPERIOR COURT will affect the credits and pocketbooks of virtually every American writer, actor, director, porn star and documentary maker – union or free lancer -- who may have sold movies or videos overseas in the past 30 years OR who may sell their works in other countries in the future, where they will collect what are called “foreign levies.”
These “foreign levies,” are like royalties mandated by the state, tiny taxes on sales of media meant to benefit the artist. They were enacted by European legislatures to help writers and actors and artists who otherwise might receive nothing from the corporations who made or distributed their films/performances. For some, the money amounts are enormous.
In the decades-old scheme, billions of dollars have been collected and divided – in secret – by the WGA, DGA, SAG and 11 members of the MPAA. The method behind the split between unions and studios, money collected for actors and writers both inside and outside of unions, who worked independently or worked for studios, was first concocted by WGA Secretary-Treasurer Carl Gottlieb in the early 90’s.
Since then, millions have “disappeared,” unaccounted-for -- according to sworn testimony by paid-off whistleblowers, and the hidden studio-union agreements remained unknown to almost any union or non union American artist until our seminal class action lawsuit was filed against the WGAw in 2005. It is now 2012, and there is still no accounting.
Using evidence from the WGA lawsuit, the same LA contingency lawyers quickly filed two more lawsuits against the SAG and DGA unions, dating back to 2007.
But all three of the settlements are in breach, clearly in breach, and the lawyers for all sides keep stonewalling year after year, to wear down any opposition, to protect attorney interests along with the interests of the unions’ Board of Directors and studio bosses alike; everybody working together to hold up the walls against the truth, now crumbling down on them.
The fiduciary obligations of the unions’ Board of Directors are to their membership. I am sure that just about 100% of the dues-paying members of these “sister” unions would not want to be responsible for taking money from non-members if they knew about it, and would hold their officers directly responsible for immediate, transparent accountings and interest on their own money, too.
There is a hearing coming up on August 9, at the LA SUPERIOR COURT -- 600 Commonwealth Avenue, LA, Department 311, Judge Wiley, 9:30AM -- but if it’s like the other hearings, the majority media will ignore it. No wonder: the unions represent all actors and writers and broadcasters on cable and TV, and the networks and studios are owned by the very same major corporations who are tainted and caught by these decades-long thefts.
As the money appears to have vanished from the various unions’ domestic bank accounts, it may be the studio for-profit corporations that will finally have to pay up for the non-profit union corporations, as only they have the billions due.
I am a formerly reclusive writer/director/actor wrought up in this because I believed the quest of the lawsuit was genuine and was told thousands were signing on the suit along with me. I found out I was lead plaintiff from the NY Times, and up to now I’ve been the only writer among the named plaintiffs. Maybe in the future many more will join to demand fair representation and justice in court. You can read more at my blog (partly constructed) at williamrichert.blogspot or at my work in progress website williamrichert.com. email: richertwilliam@mac.com
From:
LEAD PLAINTIFF WILLIAM RICHERT,
WILLIAM RICHERT VS
WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA, et. al.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – CENTRAL CIVIL WEST
CASE NO: BC339972
DECLARATION OF WILLIAM RICHERT - PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITON TO ATTORNEY’S MOTION FOR ADDITIONAL FEES
Hearing:
Date: August 9, 2012
Time: 9:30 AM
Place: Dept 311
Action filed: Sept. 16, 2005
JULY 27, 2012
TO: ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANT AND PLAINTIFF
HONORABLE JOHN SHEPARD WILEY JR.
DEPT 311
LA SUPERIOR COURT
600 Commonwealth Avenue
Los Angeles, California
via email and Hand Delivery
cc: "All American writers" represented in this lawsuit.
cc: Counsel Neville Johnson & Paul Kiesel for Plaintiff and Tony Segall for WGAw
RE: CLASS REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM RICHERT RESPECTFULLY ASKS COURT TO DENY COUNSEL'S MOTION FOR ADDITIONAL FEES.
REQUESTS LAWYER'S NEWEST FUNDS BE HELD FOR CLASS TO PAY FOR NEW ACCOUNTING/REVIEW AND INDEPENDENT COUNSEL OVERSIGHT IN BREACHED SETTLEMENT.
Dear Judge Wiley,
Your honor, as you know I am the Lead Plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of non-union free American writers against the Writer's Guild of America, Inc., a non-profit corporation.
During the course of this 7-year litigation I have become the certified representative for both union and non-union writers in tiny towns and places all across America.
I also came to represent all 19,500 WGA members who today find themselves bound "forever" to the settlement terms because I was falsely presented to the courts as a member "Emeritus In Arrears," a category invented for me by the union, which I never was.
There is no other writer among the named plaintiffs.
I am duty bound by Congressional mandate to act as "Citizens Attorney General" for each and every one of my class.
Ethically, I must inform the court about matters that have not been presented to the Judge: willful, serious omissions that deserve the court's attention and remedies:
1.) ON JANUARY 10 2012 Defendant WGAw corporation and its Board of Directors misled Judge West in Dept. 311 by saying there was an acceptable audit in settlement, placed on the wga.org website. Our lawyers did not tell the Judge that the auditors themselves say the website document is NOT AN AUDIT, and cannot be used by anybody except the WGA itself, thus deceiving the court and writer class into believing the lawsuit is satisfied. Both the writer’s class counsel and defendant’s counsel put forth this audit knowing it was not an audit and could not be used as an audit.
2.) Significantly, and only just discovered in DGA documents, a new “second set of books” has been disclosed, pinpointing yearly audits of foreign levies for WGA, SAG and DGA along with the MPAA studios dating back to 2006. It appears that throughout all these years of courtroom litigation for an audit, the guilds and attorneys concealed he existence of an annual ongoing $70,558 PKF "Tri Guild Audit", an audit paid for by the studios which might provide startling new evidence of actual amounts involved in the lawsuits, an audit of the money belonging to the writer class that the class deserves to examine since the only audit given after all these yeas is a NOT AUDIT and can't be used as an accounting for the millions "disappeared.”
3.) The annual "review" on the WGAw website is also bogus and consists of only one page, and the small print states, brazenly and unbelievably, that the audit is taken from the same KMPG numbers provided entirely by the same WGA people accused of embezzlement; thus in no way can this one page document be used to verify class accounting demands under the settlement.
4.) In the May 16 hearing Neville Johnson revealed for the first time that the foreign levy amount collected by the WGAw actually 200 million, or almost twice the 104 million the union told the courts and Variety and the class.
5.) In post-settlement documents the WGA has revealed that 9,360 writers received the just acknowledged 200 million, but offers no proof at all that this happened, how the money was divided, not a single cancelled check.
6.) Though they were told repeatedly from the bench by Judge West to provide accounting documents and correspondence to the Lead Plaintiff for the class, Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesel and Don Jasko refused, excluding American writers from their lawsuit almost entirely.
7.) The court should not allow Mr. Johnson again to substitute any non-writer for the position of Lead Plaintiff for “all American writers,” as he and Tony Segall attempted to substitute into the case the daughter of non-writer Pearl Retchin, a class plaintiff who was dead for a year before the court was told.
8.) As Lead Plaintiff in the case I still have not been provided any accounting at all, and have not been paid the minimum $75,000 owed to me (CAFA) against an estimated $233,000 lost as a result of the embezzlements. My attorney Paul Kiesl told me that my checks from the WGA would be used as the basis for an in-depth accounting that would apply to all the class. This accounting could be compared to the DGA and SAG accountings for my films throughout all three unions. I relied on Mr. Kiesl’s expertise, as he gives lectures on class actions to LA Superior Court Judges, is a Co Chair of the California Bar and provides ample expertise on class actions procedures. Mr. Kiesl sat with me for three days, during which time he explained in front of witness how Lead Plaintiffs accountings are templates for the class. Because of his promise of a fair and understandable audit, given in front of witnesses, provided with court-sanctioned expert opinion I signed the settlement agreement for the class.
9.) I have been retaliated against by both the WGAw Executives and Board in false statements to their membership, and by my own lawyers, who filed vexatious tax reports that got me in trouble with the IRS. In his Oct 3 2011 hearing Judge West admonished the WGA to quit any harm to the writer's plaintiff, but my lawyers ignored him and did nothing about it and the WGA harassing behavior continues online.
“THE COURT: YOU KNOW, THERE’S A LOT OF MYSTERY GOING ON HERE. AND WE ALL OUGHT TO BE AWARE THAT I’VE GOT SOME CONCERNS. AND I WANT TO HEAR FROM MR. RICHERT ON THIS ISSUE.” – Judge Carl J. West, May 21, 2008
Your honor, I declare that if the DGA's accounting is "laughable," the WGA brings down the house with its claim that its Board of Directors spent approximately 35 million in "administrative fees” etc., – not to mention attorney and whistle blower fees – an amount exceeding the entire WGAw yearly budget -- to distribute non-union and union foreign levies – not a penny of which belonged to them -- when they were unable to account for any of it until the appearance a “not audit” audit, accompanied by the equally sudden appearance of 200 million after the recent sudden appearance of 104 million -- and all of it a fraction of what actually was collected by unions divided with the studios -- is pure bunk. WGA corruption exposer Eric Hughes’ documents, and Teri Mial’s paid-off employee Whistle blower testimony, show all the accounts to be false.
Therefore, on behalf of the class I represent, I seek a decree that shifts the funds for future attorneys fees to a general fund for the class of writers I represent, so the just-discovered "Tri Guild" accountings can be examined, and new attorneys can be hired to look at the entirety of this settlement action and its aftermath in your courtroom.
Because of these post-settlement revelations, an outside accounting is in the interest of fairness to the millions owed by law to the authors and screenwriters of the 102,00 "titles" the WGA claims to have collected money for, and split with the DGA and studios.
With these revelations since Judge West retired, we discover a large number of artists in plaintiff classes, with the guilds owing money to 102,000 writers and 102,000 directors of those titles and the 500,000 or more actors in the related SAG case; they say they paid it, but as Mr. Hughes puts it, there is “not a shred of evidence.” -- But sworn evidence of plenty of shredding.
“THE COURT: THE UNDERLYING GOAL OF THIS SETTLEMENT AND THE COURT’S DETERMINATION THAT IT WAS A FAIR AND REASONBLE SETTLEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE CLASS OF PEOPLE WHO WERE CERTIFIED FOR SETTLEMENT PURPOSES AND WHO ARE BENEFITTING FROM THIS SETTLEMENT: IS THAT THERE WOULD BE A MORE TRANSPARENT AND OPEN ACCOUNTING OF COLLECTIONS AND DISTRIBUTIONS.” Judge Carl J. West, Dept 311, Jan 10, 2012
As "Citizen Attorney General" for my class of American writers, I plead that your honor will assist this plaintiff by enacting the following motions in the interests of fairness, justice and transparency:
MOTION TO DENY ATTORNEY FEES TO CLASS LAWYERS in the August 9, 2012 hearing until the court is satisfied the writer class plaintiff has funds to hire a lawyer equal to the super-lawyers so the writer-plaintiff can adequately defend the class against further theft, "Both federal and California courts have held that, when the ethical violation in question is a conflict of interest between the attorney and the client, the appropriate fee for the attorney in question is zero." -- letter to Judge Highberger re fraud on LA Superior court.
MOTION TO COMPEL DEFENDANT DGA, ITS CFO AND PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO PROVIDE ALL PKF STUDIO AUDITS IN ITS POSSESSION RELATING TO THE WGAW FOREIGN LEVY LAWSUIT, INCLUDING AUDIT OF WITH MAJOR STUDIOS TO VERIFY AMOUNTS. The class should not be the out and out loser in a class action if the action has merit and is sound. The class is entitled to simple transparency in all audits which relate to money which was collected illegally for thousands of unsuspecting free writers and writers not hired by studios. It is in the most urgent interest of the class to know how much of their money was given to the studios, and to each of the unions, and how much actually received from this settlement.
MOTION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE TO COMPEL WGA TO PROVIDE WRITER CLASS COPIES OF WGAW"TRI STATE" AUDITS SHOWING WHERE THE FOREIGN LEVY MONEY DISAPPEARED. The settlements do not release claims against the WGAw for splitting with studios outside the collective bargaining agreement; the settlements do not settle any future claims from non-union American actors OR union American directors. The Board of Directors are basically withholding evidence.
MOTION TO COMPEL COPIES OF DOCUMENTS, ACCOUNTINGS AND EMAILS BETWEEN CONSULTANT DONALD JASKO AND WGAW et. al. CFO DON GOR BE GIVEN TO THE WRITER CLASS. Donald Jasko asked me specifically for copies of checks I got from the WGA that did not match the DGA; I did not know it was just to keep me quiet, and he had no intention of using them.
MOTION TO COMPEL ACCOUNTING FOR LEAD PLAINTIFF WILLIAM RICHERT AS TEMPLATE FOR THE CLASS, AS PROMISED by counsel Paul Kiesl before signing the settlement, specifically the titles “Law and Disorder,” “The Happy Hooker,” “Success,” “Winter Kills,” and “The Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon,” “The Man In The Iron Mask,” years 1974-2012.
MOTION TO COMPEL WGAw to provide copies of its settlement documents to states attorneys-general and Federal authorities as provided by law, since the affected are from all states.
MOTION TO DEMAND NEVILLE JOHNSON AND WGAW CEASE RETALIATION AGAINST NAMED PLAINTIFF, as the WGAw puts false statements about me on its website and to letters to its members, and Neville Johnson purposefully filed misleading tax information to the IRS causing me tax burdens. No class representative should have to fear retribution or bad-mouthing from the defendant or his own lawyers.
I have been threatened to be dumped roadside, and blacklisted, and other things during this confrontational litigation with my former union, who claim I am a member when they need the association and then deny it in emails to their members when they don't.
BACKGROUND AND AUTHORITY
Neville Johnson told the LA Daily Journal that he was the mastermind of the “3 sister” foreign levy lawsuits in 2005, drawing upon his existing clients as Lead Plaintiffs.
I was such a client at the time, with my jury award the highest he ever got, almost 15 million. Mr. Johnson knew I’d publicly stated that the WGAw was corrupt from having my credit for THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT/WEST WING given to another writer without due process or transparency just the way Mr. Johnson described the way the guild concealed millions in undistributed funds for unnamed non-union writers the guild divided with the studios in a long-running kind of mutual extortion.
The real force behind Neville Johnson's lawsuits was Eric Hughes, screenwriter of "Against All Odds" and "White Knights." It was Eric Hughes, WGA presidential candidate running against corrupt credit arbitration in the WGA, who obtained insider documents from whistle blower Teri Mial, paid six-figures herself to keep quiet in this lawsuit. And it was Eric Hughes who introduced Mial to Mr. Johnson, and who showed Mr. Johnson, along with me and other prominent journalists, just what the corruption looked like on paper.
Mr. Johnson was essentially a copyist of Mr. Hughes' written allegations used by his firm Johnson & Rishwain for their original complaints of fraud and other things against all three Hollywood “labor” guilds.
We ask the court to demand that documents held by Mr. Hughes be given to the class. Mr. Hughes owes it to the writers, actors and directors to provide copies of evidence that rightfully belongs to them, and which can eliminate instantly, with publication of names and amounts, all doubt about who did what, and can provide immediate finality to this class litigation.
However, far more significant to this breached settlement, a game changer, is the discovery from new statements by the DGA that the unions and studios have actually been covertly doing audits all this time. This means that all during years of lengthy courtroom hearings for the DGA, WGA and SAG since the lawsuit was filed in 2005, the lawyers kept quiet. Now we see proof positive how all foreign levies were all audited by the studios and themselves since maybe as early as 2003 in what the CFO of the DGA calls "Tri Guild Foreign Levy Audits."
It would be a public sham to continue hearings in court to get something already got.
It is iconic misdirection among 19+ lawyers for the unions who appeared for these guilds in court during the past 7 years and never mentioned they already had what the class was looking for: an audit; evidence of a billion-dollar secret royalty split between the unions and studios approved by nobody among the free Americans in my class, whose money it actually was/is, and who could use it today.
BIG STORY, BIG PLAYERS
This could only happen in Hollywood, where a whisper can sink a ship of a career. Where unions have meetings with both writers and young video dancers with teamsters in tow. Intimidation is rampant, your honor should know.
Once I discovered Mr. Johnson, and next Mr. Keisl, were ready to sell out the rights of American writers for their personal and corporate profits, that they were essentially profiteering on Superior Court litigation without regard for the greater long term rights of the writers who are their clients, I became in direct conflict with my lawyers while standing in place as lead plaintiff, and I am standing still, for I have not surrendered the original goal of the case: a true accounting and payout and end to unethical behavior.
I attach a "disappeared" check signed by Patric Verrone made out to the poet Bukowski, a fellow class member.
Mr. Johnson tells each judge about how weak and unorganized our related cases for writers, directors and actors are; tells each judge he/she is our only hope, but that's because Neville Johnson is not doing his job, as it is not the Judge's job to act as advocate for the lawyer's underdog in a lawsuit.
The lawyers for both sides in this case purport to represent writers and artists, but none of them really do.
The true facts and true movers have been concealed from Dept. 311, from both you and Judge West before you, and Judge Morrow before that in Federal court.
The court transcript of January 10, before he retired, shows Judge West believed both sides when he was told an "audit" had been placed on the WGAw website. His sudden retirement meant he never saw the one page NOT AN AUDIT that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Kiesel and Mr. Segall told him gave settlement finality to the RICHERT VS. WGAw lawsuit.
At Judge West’s last hearing in Dept. 311, January 10, 2012, which I couldn’t attend because I wasn’t told about it, Judge West did say to Messrs. Johnson and Schecter: "I don't want the two of you in front of me any more. It doesn't do any good,” and “I know enough to be dangerous.”
Judge West said if it had his name on it, "it has to be right."
Before telling Judge West the audit was on the WGAw website, Neville Johnson claimed that the settlement was in material breach; only a large payment to Donald Jasko changed that, along with fees yet to be paid to Neville Johnson. But for these payments, the settlement is still in breach.
I don't claim copyright but my name is on this lawsuit and I've known some great writers who deserve my sticking to our rights, even if I am threatened with expulsion from the writer's lawsuit in favor of lawyers. A case brought on behalf of writers should have a writer in it.
SOLIDARITY OF CORRUPTION
It is absurd to have the accused corporation offer its own accounting without strict oversight, or any oversight. Having the WGAw review its own review is like a joke; a "Not Audit" is not acceptable to settle a lawsuit except for suckers, and putting numbers from a "not audit" up on the wga.org website as an "one-time review" with an “annual review” consisting of 3 lines is offensive and insulting to my class.
I still have not gotten any form of accounting for my own foreign levies owed and interest bearing dating back to 1974. Please show us the stubbs.
Besides being useless to the class, the accounting is AICA, not GAAP; another breach.
ACCOUNTING NOT PERFORMED ACCORDING TO GENERAL ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES AS REQUIRED IN SETTLEMENT
The startling figure 200 million entered into the record by Neville Johnson is double what was reported only months ago by the WGA to Variety. Where’d it come from? We need to know, your honor.
Now suddenly, the WGAw says it paid out 21 million dollars to its members/non members in the single year 2011. This single amount is 20% of what the union claims to have paid out over the past 20 years -- and this year the lowest in DVD sales since the past decade or so -- how does this add up?
In fact, the WGA claims it collected 85 million dollars plus 1,323,149 “interest/income” for members and free writers nationwide since 2007, more than in all the years from 1992-2007, when DVD sales were ballooning.
WGAw Board claims it distributed 21 million to members this year. In the past 20 years they charged 35+ million in “fees” to do all this “administration,” but cannot produce a single canceled check in evidence.
How can the WGAw charge its members roughly one-quarter of what it collected for "administrative" fees when it can't show it administered anything, when it has to hire an outside firm for an audit amazingly limited and confined to numbers only they offer, and nothing more?
How can the lawyers from several firms keep billing the same writers in all cases millions in fees without producing a single accounting of merit? In fact, hiding the audit that really does exist.
In the hearing before you on May 16 in Dept 311, where this case has been for years, the WGA counsel is silent when Neville Johnson suddenly pops up with an extra 100 million.
The Lead Plaintiff is obliged to protest. The court should look at the 2007 WGAw accounting, given under oath, which both duplicates and contradicts the KMPG report.
The KMPG-WGAw accounting, approved by its Board of Directors to settle a case for fraud, doesn't compute, add up, or make sense. It's a big lie.
That means the Boards of Directors and Executives at 3 major guilds handling the money of thousands of people are untrustworthy.
THE BREACHED SETTLEMENT WITHOUT COMPLIANCE GIVES WGAw/MPAA STUDIOS ECONOMIC CONTROLS OVER U.S. WRITERS NATIONWIDE UNLESS THE CLASS SAYS FOUL AND THE COURT ALLOWS THE CLASS TO SPEAK.
The WGAW has concealed facts about writers’ credits and income before.
It was the writer's guild union who blacklisted hundreds of great American screenwriters, their own colleagues, putting them out of work for years, a long list of names also due foreign levies, if living; otherwise, their heirs.
This Hollywood union/studio combo are seeking to control piracy on the internet, when they are pirates themselves with American foreign royalties and copyrights.
The guilds and studios have "organized' the collection of foreign royalties for all American artists, and they have done so in secret, illegally.
American writers and artists should know that there is a huge database with their names and financial information on it, as many as 700,000 citizens, a database they cannot access.
The WGA/MPAA should not be in possession of that database – U.S. citizens’ social security numbers and addresses and tax ID’s – which will soon number in the millions as more and more independent filmmakers sell their work abroad over the internet and other places.
Unions so ostentatiously corrupt should not have access to this information so as to seize it as a “mailing list” ripe for exploitation.
WGAw claims the 2007 strike gives the union jurisdiction over the Internet for any thing that moves, saying if it moves it must be written, and they control it.
The WGAw refers to writers who write without a union or new media contract with them as “scabs.”
“THE COURT: I GUESS I HAVE REAL CONCERNS ABOUT HOW ALL THESE NEGOTIATIONS AND MEDIATIONS WERE TAKING PLACE WITH NO LIVING CLASS REPRESENTATIVE FOR ONE OF THE SUPP. CLASSES. THAT'S A PROBLEM.
I HAVE A QUESTION REGARDING THE ABILITY OF CLASS COUNSEL TO CONTINUE TO REPRESENT THE INTERESTS OF THE CLASS AT THIS JUNCTURE GIVEN THE INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN PLACED BEFORE THE COURT.” Judge Carl J. West, Dept 311, March 23, 2009
Paul Kiesl, who induced me with his knowledge of facts and law (in front of 2 witnesses) to sign this settlement on behalf of my class, did not attend the May 16 hearing, perhaps because he was out raising 660 million in emergency funding for the LA Superior Court system. That amount may have been lost to the LA tax base during the 2.9 billion WGA strike in 2007, which still hurts, led by the same Board who gave the KMPG accounting.
Your honor clerked with Justice Powell who vigorously promoted the idea of corporations having the same rights as individuals -- and it ought to work both ways.
If corporations have the same rights as individuals, as Chief Justice Powell believed, they have the same obligations for honesty and fair dealing, and ought not use their lopsided power, as in LA, where unions and studios possess vastly superior resources and hidden agreements dating back years. If their rights Trump ours, and they as “corporate individuals” are protected over my class and me as an non-corporate individual in your courtroom, my class action is doomed.
Individuals cannot fight major corporations alone, which is why class actions were created. Of course the court knows that, you handle class actions routinely.
I am not be able to afford a lawyer on my writer's income, esp. now that the WGAw has stopped sending me residuals and levy checks altogether as a result of this litigation.
LAWYER CLIENT CONFLICT WHEN CLIENT REPRESENTS A LARGE CLASS
Some legalists have told me to contact the Bar about Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesl, but it's quicker to just email Mr. Kiesl as he is Co-Chair of the California bar.
Eric Hughes did complain to the bar, which found the fact Mr. Kiesel didn’t associate himself into the case was problematical, as Mr. Kiesl already knows.
CALIFORNIA CODE OF JUDICAL ETHICS: (1) A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment, nor shall a judge convey or permit others to convey the impression that any individual is in a special position to influence the judge.
Also I feel obliged to say, as the only writer court-certified to represent my class that your honor’s remarks to me on first sight when I raised my hand to speak in protest after Neville Johnson said my case was "settled" when I say no -- when you advised me this was “not a town hall” “or a therapy meeting” -- as if I were a hothead or a nutcase -- and later when you said in front of me that these lawyers sitting in front of me were such that “every law school student in the country would like to be like you” -- and especially when you told me that my lawyers were "famous," implying I was not, and maybe for some faulty reason I was not -- these statements from your authority, which are absolute, made me think I should complain to the Commission of Judges for fair dealing with all parties in a lawsuit -- as to whether you showed bias towards a Lead Plaintiff in a class action lawsuit in favor of lawyers --but as in the case of my lawyers, I may as well just state my concerns to you here directly, respectfully, and ask you as a member of the California’s Commission on Judicial Ethics Opinions to consider the pain of my humiliation in court.
You honor must be aware that you are highly regarded as a brilliant legal mind in article after article about Judges on the Internet, and so your initial opinion of me is even more damaging and I plead with the court to remember:
(8)…A JUDGE SHALL MANAGE THE COURTROOM IN A MANNER THAT PROVIDES ALL LITIGANTS THE OPPORTINITY TO HAVE THEIR MATTERS FAIRLY ADJUDICATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW.
COMENTARY: …A judge should encourage and seek to facilitate settlement, but parties should not feel coerced into surrendering their right to have their controversy resolved by the courts.”
This class action is not about coupons or consumers, it is about creators and copyrights and human rights, each and every artist involved is different, and that is one of their similarities as a class. No assembly line here.
As artists, they have a right to know if their work is shown abroad, indeed shown anywhere, and they have the right to be assured their accountings are transparent and honest.
I figure the combo lawyers have made millions off the defendants in these cases so far.
At the hearing for attorney fees on August 9, if your honor could move a little cash -- which comes from writers anyhow -- to the other side of the table -- it would mean we could pay for a true accounting, a great leap towards justice for as 700,000 Americans.
Like Neville Johnson, I concur that history will be made in your courtroom, only not in Mr. Johnson’s way.
We shall do all in our power to make sure this settlement is not an out and out loss for the freedom of artists in America, a Hollywood snuff job for our civil rights and economic rights as free writers and artists in a free nation.
Sincerely,
William Richert
Lead Plaintiff
WILLIAM RICHERT VS
WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA et al
4 EXHIBITS: