Tyler Perry Studios, WGA Reach Agreement

After more than five months of negotiations over writers’ contracts that included residuals and other benefits, Tyler Perry Studios and the Writers Guild of America (WGA)-West announced last week that they had come to an agreement.

“We are pleased to have come to a resolution with the WGA, and thank the NAACP for their support during negotiations,” said Tyler Perry in a statement. “We look forward to many years working with the talented writers who are members of the Guild.”

The contract with the WGA was the last outstanding union agreement for Tyler Perry Studios, which had previously brokered deals with the Teamsters; the IATSE, a professional stagehands union; the Screen Actors Guild (SAG); the Directors Guild of America (DGA); and others. Perry is a member of the DGA.

Ben Jealous, NAACP national president, Vic Bulluck, executive director of the NAACP Hollywood Bureau, and Clayola Brown, national president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, were instrumental in settling the terms of the agreement.

“The NAACP is a staunch advocate for workers rights and for nearly one hundred years has fought for greater minority representation and inclusion in Hollywood. We applaud Tyler Perry’s efforts to not only promote, but to also provide work for people of color in the entertainment industry,” Jealous said in a statement.

Despite the accomplishment, some of the writers on Perry’s TBS series House of Payne and Meet the Browns will not be returning. Last October, when Perry welcomed Will Smith, Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, and Ruby Dee, among others, to celebrate with him as he unveiled his film and television studio in Atlanta, the A-listers had to cross a picket line of writers who said they were unfairly fired from Perry’s critically acclaimed sitcom House of Payne. The writers were accompanied by supporters from the Writers Guild of America-West.

Earlier in the year, seven writers entered into negotiations with Tyler Perry Studios about residuals on the soon—to-debut sitcom Meet the Browns. The WGA said in a news release that the writers–Kellie Griffin, Christopher Moore, Teri Brown-Jackson, and Lamont Ferrell–were warned against unionizing and told that they could be “replaced.”

Before the NAACP got involved to find a resolution, the WGA alleged that Tyler Perry’s House of Payne L.L.C. unlawfully fired four writers in retaliation for their union activity, and the union subsequently filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

Matt Johnson, who negotiated the deal for Tyler Perry Studios, said in an October statement that the four writers were terminated because of the quality of their work and denied that they were fired for attempting to unionize.

“If that were the case, they would not have allowed us to write over 100 episodes of a sitcom and write another 10-20 episodes for Meet the Browns,” said Lamont Ferrell, one of the fired writers, in an interview last month. “When they fired us they said, ‘You’re not being fired because of the quality of your work. You’re being fired because Tyler just wanted to go in a different creative direction.’”

House of Payne is centered on the lives of three generations of an African American family living under one roof. When it premiered in 2007, it ranked as the highest-rated sitcom in the history of ad-supported cable, according to Nielsen Media ratings provided by TBS. The show also won three NAACP Image Awards in February 2008.

Tyler sold House of Payne to Fox in a $100 million syndication deal after also receiving $200 million from TBS. “One of the major stumbling blocks of the negotiations was residuals from the syndication,” says Terence Long, a WGA spokesperson who alleges that only WGA writers were fired by Perry’s production company. “They wanted to pay far below what most other TV shows pay with regard to residuals.”

“Isn’t it strange that Tyler Perry suddenly discovered the quality of work suffered after they had completed 116 episodes of House of Payne

…after the show was sold [for $300 million and is now in syndication]?” asked Long last October.

Of the 150 shows employing 1,200 writers in scripted television programming, House of Payne had been the only show where writers were not covered by the WGA’s minimum basic agreement, according to a letter to House of Payne producers and submitted by WGA creators, showrunners, and executive producers. The agreement guarantees minimum compensation, residuals, health coverage, and a pension, in addition to other benefits.

Johnson said in a release last month that the WGA had misrepresented the facts, called one of their news releases “racially inflammatory,” and accused the group of “attacking a man who employs over 300 Atlantans– the majority of whom are African American.”

Perry, who was named one of the Top 25 Moneymakers in Hollywood by Black Enterprise magazine in March, would not comment for this article. Someone familiar with the economics of the show said that Perry, who owns all of his copyrights, invested his own money into producing the show and has yet to recoup his investment. According to the source, aside from creative differences, the writers were fired because Perry wanted all of his writers to live in Atlanta. The four that were fired lived in Los Angeles. A fifth writer who lived on the West Coast was offered a relocation package and would not move but will continue to work on the show.

“He made more money from his television empire than from his movies,” Ferrell said. “We felt we should have been compensated because we were a big part of his success, but before the firings we weren’t even invited to the [gala]. We felt like we got smacked in the face.”

With a gospel brunch, fireworks, and performances by Mary J. Blige and John Legend, the boycott did not appear to dampen Perry’s festivities. However, as a preamble to posting photos from the two-day event, Perry wrote on his Website that he was being “attacked” but he did not clarify in what way or allude to accusations made by the WGA.

Perry dedicated three of the five sound stages at his production studio to Cicely Tyson, Sidney Poitier, and Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis. The fourth sound studio will be named for Quincy Jones and the fifth has not been dedicated. Perry signed a new three-year, first look deal, last June, with Lionsgate film studio, which covers his upcoming theatrical and home entertainment product.