The Writers Guild of America is on strike.
The news of the strike, which will take effect within hours, came late on Monday after talks with the guild AMPTP Failed to reach an agreement on a new film and scripted TV contract. it is wgaThis is the first strike since the 100-day walkout in 2007-08. The guild has not yet said when and where the first Strike Will happen, but it may come by the afternoon of May 2.
Less than an hour after talks with the studio ended and three hours before their current contracts were to officially expire, the guild announced the labor action in a message to members:
Following the unanimous recommendation of the WGA Negotiating Committee, the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and the Council of the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), acting on the authority granted to them by their membership, Tuesday, May 2, Voted unanimously to call for strike, effective 12:01 am.
The decision was taken after six weeks of negotiations with Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony under the umbrella of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The WGA Negotiating Committee began the process with the intent of striking a fair deal, but the studio’s responses have been grossly inadequate given the existential crisis writers are facing.
The companies’ behavior has created a vast economy inside a union workforce, and their steadfast stand in this negotiation betrays a commitment to further devalue the writing profession. From refusing to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to creating “day rates” in comedy variety, to free work for screenwriters and stonewalling on AI for all writers, they’ve made the most of their labor. The Force has closed the doors and opened the door for writing as a completely independent profession. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.
The picketing will start from tomorrow afternoon.
With the first major Tinseltown strike in 15 years, the WGA has scheduled an information session for members on May 3 at the 6,000-plus capacity Shrine Auditorium.
Even before that, as the picket signs go up tomorrow, late-night shows on both coasts will be closed, along with writers’ rooms and any big-screen or small-screen projects that are still being fine-tuned or Grinding the script.
guild started making picket signs after releasing last week A Long List of “Rules of the Strike” which prohibited members from working on the struck productions and from selling and presenting scripts during the strike.
Connected: Deadline’s Full Strike Coverage
Going into talks, the guild was demanding compensation and residual formulas as well as curbs on mini-rooms where groups of writers work to break stories and write scripts before producing a television series.
Connected: List of WGA Strike Picket Line Locations for Los Angeles and New York
Hampered by low residuals, lack of access to streaming data, job insecurity and more, writers are bringing in less money overall despite a content boom in recent years of more shows and more platforms. dispute, even if they have widely different viewpoints on how to solve the problem.
The guild also wants more protections for its members’ sizable payouts, noting that with the rise of streaming, more writers at all levels are working on a sizable scale than ever before, including many performers.