After nearly 30 years of managing television and movie productions, Marvin Towns Jr. had built a stellar reputation among fellow production managers and members of the Directors Guild of America.
He was known for both his communications and organizational skills, his ability to manage large teams of staff on multiple projects while at the same time maintaining quality standards and effectively communicating business goals and targets. He showed up early and stayed late.
And so it was not surprising when Tyler Perry Studios came calling last March, looking for someone who could handle season eight of the studio’s popular drama series “The Haves and the Have Nots.”
Was he interested?
Towns knew a good thing when he saw it. He was excited for the opportunity to work with a black female studio executive and with Tyler Perry, so weeks later, he was on a flight to Atlanta. For three hours, he met with Michelle Sneed, president of Tyler Perry Studios, and Niki Miller, then a production executive at And Action LLC, the studio’s production company.
That was on a Friday. On Monday, his agent called.
Towns had the job. Could he start right away?
He’d been in Atlanta barely a week before realizing he was in love.
“They rolled out the red carpet,” he said.
What happened next resembled the stomach-churning crooks and turns that have kept viewers returning to “The Haves and the Have Nots” for seven seasons.
Towns learned the Directors Guild of America, which represents directors and members of the directorial team, had not cleared him to work on the show.
It didn’t matter that he was a paid union member or that he’d been working since 2009 as a unit production manager and that the guild had approved every one of his contracts up until that moment — for “House M.D.,” “Home Run Showdown” and Faye Dunaway’s “Master Class,” among others.
Towns had not been cleared to work in this region, he said, because he wasn't on a qualification list for this area, which gives preference to people who have documented work experience.
Towns called his attorney, Chuck Dalziel in Marietta. Tyler Perry Studios reached out to a labor attorney in Los Angeles.
In June, Dalziel filed suit in Superior Court of Fulton County against the guild and And Action, Perry’s production company, claiming Towns was fired in violation of Georgia’s right-to-work law, which says no individual is required as a condition of employment to be a member of a labor organization. The lawsuit was eventually transferred to federal court.
In addition to attorney’s fees, the suit asks the court to order the guild to restore Towns’ job, and for $237,000 in lost wages, money he would’ve earned over the period of the contract with Tyler Perry Studios.
A spokeswoman for And Action, who asked not to be identified, said the agency “was pleased to hire Marvin to work as an at-will employee.” However, “while filing required paperwork with the DGA, the union advised And Action that Marvin was not qualified for the position under the contract with the union. And Action tried to help him resolve the matter, but ultimately the guild deemed he was not eligible for the position under the DGA contract and the company abided by that decision.”
Peter D. DeChiara, who represents the Directors Guild of America Inc., did not respond to telephone messages or emails for comment. Both the guild and And Action have filed motions to dismiss the case, saying the matter should be settled by the National Labor Relations Board, not the courts.
The guild also claims it notified And Action that Towns wasn’t on the qualification list and shouldn’t have been hired, according to a dismissal motion filed by the guild. The production company kept Towns employed on the show and “gave him time to submit his qualifications” … and “rectify the situation, but he either refused or failed to adequately do so,” the motion states. As a result, Towns was eventually fired.
Towns said his work history had been destroyed in a flooding incident years ago, but when informed he needed to provide the information, he got busy re-creating that history, enough to fill a 4-inch binder.
A legal filing from the guild this week says Towns was given a reprieve and allowed to stay on the project for 15 days while he produced the documentation to make him eligible for the qualification list.
Twenty days after that agreement was made, the agency that administers the qualification list said Towns still lacked documentation. Five days later, he was terminated.
On May 28, after just three weeks on the job, after Towns rearranged “my entire life to move to Atlanta to work for Tyler Perry Studios,” Sneed called Towns into her office and fired him even though he said they had guaranteed him three months in writing. No discussion.
“I was in shock,” he said. “I went downstairs, called Chuck and packed up my office.”
That was the end of Towns’ working relationship with Tyler Perry Studios.
Dalziel said he plans to seek an injunction against the Directors Guild of America and And Action, prohibiting both from ever again asserting that Towns cannot be employed in Georgia as a unit production manager.
The guild filed another brief Wednesday, opposing Towns’ motion for a judgment that his termination violated Georgia’s right-to-work law.
It’s true that Towns was not on the qualification list, but Dalziel insists Towns’ dismissal still violates the state’s right-to-work law.
Meanwhile, Towns has returned home to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and is working on television commercials and the development of two feature films.
He’s been offered other jobs, including a unit production manager’s position with a hit television series that shoots in Chicago, but can’t take them because the Directors Guild says he can’t work in the Chicago area either. In legal filings this week, the guild denied that it has “moved to block him from taking any other jobs and we have never ‘targeted’ him.”
“They set my life back,” Towns said. ”I was planning on being in Atlanta until Christmas. We were already talking about continuing our relationship in 2020.”
I asked Towns what he wanted.
“I want a card that allows me to work all over the country the way I did before,” he said.
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