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Negotiators from Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America reached a groundbreaking agreement after five consecutive days of negotiations – a tentative agreement to end a strike that has brought most television and film scripting to a halt in the country.
Terms of the agreement were not immediately shared by the WGA, which said in a statement Sunday evening that the deal was “extraordinary,” adding that it included “significant profits and protections for writers across all areas of the membership.”
The union said it would stop picketing immediately, although its more than 11,000 members were warned not to return to work until the agreement was put into contract form and approved by WGA leadership and the general membership in the coming days became. “Until then we are still on strike,” the statement said.
But the deal still stands is the most hopeful sign of progress since May, when the WGA and a consortium of major studios and streaming services did not renew their old contract. The sides have disagreed over issues such as paying writers and the use of artificial intelligence in script creation. The WGA strike lasted nearly 150 days, making it one of the longest labor strike conflicts in Hollywood.
“I am so proud of the hard work and commitment, not only on the negotiating committee, but by all members of the WGA, who have shown incredible unity in the fight for a fair deal,” said WGA member Gloria Calderón Kellett, co-creator of “One Day at a Time.”
Even if the authors go back to work in the coming days, that won’t end Hollywood’s labor crisis on its own. After signing a new contract with the writers, the studios will have to restart the bargaining process with another union that represents tens of thousands of television and film actors who themselves went on strike over the summer.
“Hopefully a precedent has been set, the actors can also get a fair deal and we can all get back to work very soon,” said WGA member Michael Jamin (“King of the Hill,” “Just Shoot Me”). ), whose strike comment updates have garnered 160,000 followers on Instagram.
Whatever agreement the two sides reached was not put into the language of a final contract, according to Sunday’s statement. “While we are happy to share with you the details of what we have achieved, we cannot do so until the last ‘i’ is dotted,” it said. “That would complicate our ability to complete the job.”
Once the contract is finalized, the WGA’s bargaining committee must approve it, followed by the union’s eastern and western branch boards – votes are expected to take place by Tuesday.
If the contract is approved by leadership, the WGA would publish the contract language and hold meetings about it for the union’s roughly 11,500 members. Those members would hold a ratification vote, and if a majority of them approved the deal, the union would presumably send them back to work.
WGA members have voted overwhelmingly for new contracts in recent bargaining cycles, which take place every three years. More than 97 percent of WGA voters approved the 2020 contract that expired in May, triggering the current strike, and the 2017 contract before it.
The contract that ended the WGA’s last strike in 2008 was only slightly less popular: 93.6 percent of the more than 4,000 voting members approved its ratification.
Union leaders don’t necessarily have to wait for the ratification vote to end the strike. In 2008, WGA board members voted to allow writers to return to work two weeks before the new contract was ratified. In Sunday’s statement, WGA negotiators said union leaders could decide to do the same this time: “This would allow writers to return to work during the ratification vote, but would preserve members’ right to make a final decision.” on the approval of the contract.”
The WGA strike resolution means writers can get back to writing scripts, which should help ease the growing backlog of delayed TV and film projects that has piled up since May. Many reality shows and other projects that do not rely on striking actors may be able to resume production immediately.
But studios won’t be able to film the majority of their scripted projects, including franchise films and sitcoms, until they resolve a dispute with a much larger union: the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which ordered dozens of thousands of television and film artists to withhold their work in July.
The actors went on strike for many of the same reasons as the writers – they wanted better pay and benefits, higher residual payments and transparency on streaming projects, and protection from replacement by artificial intelligence. But SAG-AFTRA’s specific demands are different from those of the WGA, and it has different leaders and negotiators.
That’s why the crisis in Hollywood could last weeks or months. It took nearly two months for the studios to reach a tentative agreement with the WGA after both sides resumed negotiations in early August. The renewed talks began haltingly, with little progress and mutual recriminations, before ending last week in a sprawling series of closed-door meetings involving executives from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Netflix – a sign of that , how bad it was The studios want the writers back to work.
By contrast, the studios have not yet requested a meeting with SAG-AFTRA negotiators, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the actors’ union’s executive director and chief negotiator, said before the WGA deal was announced, although the union said it was open to talks.
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Once SAG-AFTRA meets with the studios and hammers out a tentative deal, the process is very similar to the WGA’s: First the board must approve the deal, and then the actors must vote to ratify it, and then they return to their jobs .
Erica Werner and Niha Masih contributed to this report.
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