As the current leader of the Writers Guild of America East prepares to step aside, two writers are throwing their hats in the ring to take her place.
Fat Albert: The Movie writer Charles Kipps and Oz creator Tom Fontana are both running for president of the union, the WGA East announced on Monday. After two years in the top role and two previous years serving as vice president, incumbent Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, who wrote on The Endgame and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, is stepping aside.
Kipps, an instructor at New York’s School of Visual Arts who has previously written on shows like Little Bill and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, is running on a platform of serving the “overlooked or unproven members” of the WGA East, the emerging writers and senior writers. He proposes to do this by focusing on resource improvements, appraising the union’s contract budget tiers, exploring the possibility of waivers for longtime writers and deepening ties with SAG-AFTRA in a bid to cover more work.
Fontana has created and served as showrunner on the series Monsieur Spade, Oz, Borgia, Copper and The Jury, among other credits. If elected, the veteran writer and creator says he will fight for the union’s health plan and pension fund, wage standards and workplace safety while also working on “defending free speech and the value of our work.”
Whoever wins the presidency will serve alongside Sasha Stewart and Michael Rauch, who are running unopposed for secretary/treasurer and vice president, respectively.
Sixteen candidates are running for six seats on the union’s council that oversee the film, television and streaming entertainment sector. Incumbents Erica Saleh (the current vp of the sector), Greg Iwinski, Liz Hynes and Sarah Montana are standing for council seats alongside non-incumbent candidates Ali Barthwell, Tom Kelly, Benjamin Rosenblum, Nicole Conlan, Adam Wiesen, Felipe Torres Medina, David Angelo, Sharyn Rothstein, Dylan Guerra, Andy Rheingold, Devin Delliquanti and Chris Gethard.
Meanwhile, five candidates are running for three available seats on the council that manage the online media sector. Incumbent Sie Morley is running, as are non-incumbents Zachary Lennon-Simon, Camille Lowder, Samantha Smylie and Nitish Pahwa.
The WGA East represents around 7,600 members, according to the latest documents the union filed with the Department of Labor. The labor group bargains on behalf of workers in film, television, podcasting, broadcast and online news.
Voting for the election will take place between September 5 and 18. Winners of the election will begin their two-year terms the following day.