Professional Studies- Writers Guilds

I've begun research for my report which is focusing on the successfulness and sustainability of screenwriting. I've decided to look at writers guilds and associations first, to understand how they work and why they are established. There are many different writers guilds but the three main well established guilds that appear most are:

• WGAW (Writers Guild of America, West)
• WGAE (Writers Guild of America, East)
• WGGB (Writers Guild of Great Britain) 

Together the all three writers guilds have a combined total of 23,000 + members.
The purpose of these writers guilds is to represent and support writers working in media, they negotiate agreements with studios and employers that cover contracts, minimum fees, advances and royalties.

The WGGB offers full memberships to writers who have accumulated 8 membership points. The way a writer can manage to get membership points are:

• For each single piece of written work of any description for which reasonable payment has been received under written contract, in terms not less favourable than those existing in current minimum terms agreements negotiated by the Guild (where such agreements exist) - 8 Points
• For each single piece of marketed written work produced or published commercially other than under the terms of the previous paragraph- 4 Points
• For each completed year of candidate membership (up to four years) - 1 Point
• For each self-published work- 1 Point  

The writers guilds have fought for fair pay of writers for quite some time and negotiate often to reach an appropriate deal between the two. An historic event in the WGAW and WGAE's past is the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America Strike. This took place between November 5, 2007 and finished on February 12, 2008. 12,000 screenwriters were apart of the strike and it resulted in the writers receiving a new percentage payment on the distributors gross for digital distribution. Many television companies struggled to keep up with regular programming and had to reduce the amount of episodes in certain seasons of shows or even cancel the show entirely.

Web links:

http://www.writersguild.org.uk/join-new/fullmembership

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writers_Guild_of_America,_East

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writers_Guild_of_America,_West

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writers%27_Guild_of_Great_Britain