Direct Deposit of Residuals is Here

Those green envelopes just got greener! 

WGAW members who have enrolled in direct deposit to receive their residuals are lauding the convenience and eco-friendliness of the service. No more paperwork. No more trips to the bank. No more stamping batches of $2 checks by the hundreds.

Matt Gunn

“Wins all around on this one,” said Matt Gunn, a WGAW member who was among the first to test the program in its early stages.  “I hardly get snail mail anymore anyway and I don’t want it. I can track everything in my email. Everything is so much easier.”

Gunn has written for Real Time with Bill Maher for 21 seasons. He is grateful that the Guild won residuals for comedy-variety writers on premium cable during the 2017 contract. During a difficult time for writers due to industry contraction, he very much appreciates that the checks continue to come in. 

But he does not miss having to deal with the boxes of checks in the hundreds, checks that he would have his kids stamp with his endorsement to help save time. 

“I would get 100 checks for $1.36 and 200 for $4.13,” he recalled. “The first time I took them to the bank to deposit them, I went way over the limit, so they were going to charge me 25 cents for each check. So great, now my checks are worth even less. I had to get into a different tier because I was depositing too many checks into my bank. It was kind of a pain.”

“I know people tend to be resistant to change in general and I know a lot of people love that feeling of going to the mailbox and seeing that green envelope,” he added. “I did too. That feeling has been replaced by the feeling I get receiving emails from PaymentHub Host Support. Every time I get one, there’s that same question I had when I physically opened the green envelope: how much is this going to be for?”

Jon Macks, another comedy-variety writer, harkens back to his days writing for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno which resulted in batches of foreign residual checks, also by the box full.

Macks leapt at the opportunity to go paperless, and when he did, he found improvements were substantial and immediate. 

“You get the notice that it’s coming and you get the notice it’s there,” Macks said. “It saves paper. It saves going to the bank or having to do things on your phone. It’s a time-saver and an environmentally friendly way to do things, and anything that can make our lives easier is better.”

Direct deposit is free and available to Current WGAW members in good standing. Learn more and sign up for direct deposit.