THR Illustration/Image: David McNew/Getty Images
A historic labor dispute in Hollywood will soon be over.
The 148-day writers’ strike, the second-longest in the history of the Writers Guild of America, will end at 12:01 a.m. PT on Wednesday, thanks to a vote by guild leadership that formally authorized some 11,500 members to return to work. Tasks that were banned for months by strike rules — pitching, selling scripts, attending meetings, answering notes — will then be sanctioned, while the writers’ room can reconvene.
“This allows the authors to resume their work during the ratification process, but does not affect the membership’s right to make a final decision on treaty approval,” the WGA Negotiating Committee stated.
Studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and the union finally announced the tentative agreement on a new three-year contract Sunday evening after a full weekend of work on the deal. After talks stalled for about a month, progress accelerated starting September 20, when the two sides returned to the negotiating table at AMPTP headquarters with key industry leaders (Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros.). Sherman Oaks came. Discovery’s David Zaslav and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley were in attendance. With senior executives in the room, studios shifted their position on issues such as television writing minimums and rewarding writers for the success of streaming projects. Artificial intelligence regulations proved to be a persistent point of contention, but both sides finally reached a compromise on Sunday evening. In its notice to members about the agreement on Sunday, the WGA called the resulting agreement “extraordinary.”
On Tuesday, the WGA West Board of Directors and the WGA East Council approved the agreement, which set in motion the vote to lift the injunction against AMPTP member companies.
The news ends one half of a historic labor dispute in the entertainment industry: SAG-AFTRA is still on strike, and neither that union nor the AMPTP have yet announced new bargaining dates for the parties. The two sides are still deadlocked over issues of across-the-board wage increases, a proposal to give union members a cut of platform subscriber revenue if their streaming projects are successful, and rules on artificial intelligence, among other issues. Even if the writers are back to work, production cannot meaningfully continue without the main cast.