house-of-payne

Hottest Hollywood Scab Tyler Perry Gives In, Opens Studio to WGA

STV · 11/26/08 04:30PM

It took four fired writers, a Will Smith-defied picket line, an open letter from Tina Fey (among others), and an intervention by the NAACP, but we're happy to report that the impossible dream has finally landed at Tyler Perry Studios: The mogul is finally coming around to a deal with the WGA.The Guild sends word today that it reached an agreement with Perry after five months of negotiations, during which a handful of veteran scribes for his series Meet the Browns and House of Payne were terminated for attempting to unionize the staff. The catch? Those writers will not be coming back, according to a WGA release issued late this morning. But, they added, the mogul "thanked them for their services and wished them well in their future endeavors." Surely that's of little comfort to the reeling Tyler Perry Four, who now confront the reality they may never again have the enviable opportunity to mass-produce Madea jokes for a Perry-starved populace. We hope the NAACP negotiators can sleep at night.

Tyler Perry's How to Bust a Union and Bully Employees

ian spiegelman · 10/04/08 10:09AM

Writer/actor/director/producer Tyler Perry knows what's best for his writers. And what's best for them, apparently, is to churn out sitcom scripts without union protection or representation. The Writers' Guild of America West has filed a complaint against Perry's production company for unfair labor practices, claiming four writers on his TBS sitcom, Tyler Perry's House of Payne, were shitcanned for trying to join the union.