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US TV and film writer labor unions From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the generic term of two different American labor unions, representing writers in film, television, radio, and online media:
Although both organizations operate independently, they perform some common activities, including negotiating contracts and launching strike actions in unison.
Both organizations of the Writers Guild of America were established by 1954 after the merging of groups from other writers labor unions. The Authors Guild (AG) was originally founded in 1912 as the Authors' League of America (ALA) to represent book and magazine authors, as well as dramatists. In 1921, the Dramatists Guild of America split off as a separate group to represent writers of stage and, later, radio drama. That same year, the Screen Writers Guild (SWG) was formed to represent film screenwriters, but operated primarily more as a social organization until 1933 when the group affiliated with the AG and took on a more active role in labor negotiations. With the emergence of the television industry by 1948, the SWG and a Television Writers Group within the AG began to represent TV writers. In recognition of the growing complexity of representing members in many different fields of entertainment writing, the unions reorganized in 1954. Both the Authors Guild and the Dramatists Guild would continue to represent writers in print media, the SWG would fold, and those working in motion pictures, TV, and radio would be represented by two new guilds, headquartered on both coasts: the WGAE and the WGAW.[1][2][3]
Although the WGAE and the WGAW run independently of each other, they jointly perform some regular activities, including the following:
The WGAE and WGAW negotiate contracts in unison as well as launch strike actions simultaneously.[8]
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