In a major triumph for the Writers Guild of America, the Abrams Artists Agency has signed the WGA’s Code of Conduct, allowing the agency to return to representing WGA members again.
Chairman Adam Bold made the announcement Wednesday, saying that the agency wants to put its clients back to work. He also noted WGA West members had strongly supported the September re-election of David Goodman as president, who had told members in April to fire their agents if the agents had not agreed to bans on packaging fees and affiliate production.
“The writers had elections, and they overwhelmingly reelected David Goodman, one of the leaders of this strategy. We feel that it is time to put the writers back to work, as well as our agents. The code of conduct as it stands now, is a much better document than it was before. For that reason, along with some of our negotiated changes, made it an agreement that we can stand behind.”
Abrams is joining more than 70 agencies allowed to represent WGA members thanks to agreeing to a ban of agency packaging fees and affiliate production.
A trio of three other mid-sized agencies — Verve, Kaplan Stahler and Buchwald — signed deals with the WGA in the months following the April 13 firings. CAA, UTA and WME sued the WGA and recently consolidated their antitrust suits against the guild into a single action, accusing the union of engaging in an illegal group boycott.
