UPDATED from the original story at 9:20am with additional details: The WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers will begin negotiations on March 20 for a new film and television deal.
“The AMPTP is fully committed to reaching a fair and reasonable settlement that will bring strength and stability to the industry,” the AMPTP said in a statement Wednesday. A WGA West spokesman declined to comment “other than to confirm that we have agreed on that date.”
The current WGA contract expires on May 1st.
In a video posted to the Guild’s website last month, Adam Conover, WGA West board member and member of the Guild’s 2023 Negotiation Committee, warned members: “Be prepared. The initial AMPTP proposals are always almost entirely rebates and cuts in our compensation and other important protections and benefits.”
However, he urged members to ignore rumors of a strike. “You have probably heard a lot of rumors and provocative claims in the press about our upcoming negotiations. So let me remind you that anyone who claims to know what the guild will be doing this cycle doesn’t know what they are talking about. This is because our guild is a democratic organization. We are the guild, all of us. And we, the members, decide how to proceed.”
The WGA is currently in the process of formulating its ‘Demand Pattern’, which will provide a high-level view of what the Guild will be aiming for around the negotiating table, and has held a number of Members’ Meetings to discuss the forthcoming treaty negotiations. Two meetings earlier this month have attracted over 1,300 members, with two more scheduled for Thursday — one at the Sheraton Universal in Universal City, California, and the other at the School of Visual Arts Theater in New York City. In describing the previous two meetings, the guild said that “inspiration and unity are in the air”.
DGA has ranked first in each of the last three three-year negotiation cycles, despite their contracts expiring at the same time as SAG-AFTRA – on June 30th. Earlier this month, however, the DGA said it would not be the first guild at the negotiating table this year because “studios are not yet ready to address our core issues.”
The last time DGA didn’t take first place was in 2010, when merger-prone SAG and AFTRA came first to the negotiating table. The last time the WGA took first place, in 2007, led to a 100-day writers’ strike.
Backlogs are expected to be a key issue in the negotiations. And the guild has significant catching up to do for big wins at the bargaining table. Because in 2020, when WGA’s previous contract was set to expire, contractual advances it had hoped for were all but scrapped with the threat of a strike as the industry was already shut down by the first wave of the Covid pandemic.
Backlogs were one of the few bright spots in WGA West’s most recent earnings report, which showed backlogs collected by WGA in 2021 increased 5.4% from 2020 to an all-time high of $493.6 million. Total television backlog increased 4.7%, while screenwriter backlog increased 6.9%. New media, the largest overall residual category, accounted for almost half of the total residuals collected at 45.2%. This is an increase from last year when new media accounted for 36.7% of the total remainder collected.
However, both the jobs and overall earnings of WGA West writers have declined in recent years. According to the Guild’s 2022 Annual Report, WGA West members received fewer jobs and less salary last year than in 2020. It found that 5,951 authors reported employment in all work areas in 2021 – a 6.1% decrease – while Total earnings reported to authors for fee purposes fell 7.7% to $1.55 billion. Those are the fewest jobs since 2016 and the lowest earnings since 2017.
Many candidates in last year’s WGA West and WGA East elections said winning higher streaming residuals will be a key objective in upcoming contract negotiations, along with a host of other issues, including substantially higher minimum wage rates to offset inflation; safer pension and healthcare benefits; more equity and inclusion; the abolition of free labor; and curbing mini-rooms where groups of underpaid writers gather ahead of the production of a television series to break stories and write screenplays.
And in his annual report last May, Lowell Peterson, executive director of WGA East, recalled the 2007-08 strike and said: “As Guild members anticipated with the strike nearly 15 years ago, digital technology has the nature and… changing the way content is created and distributed and how our members make a living. On the TV and features side, everything has changed with the advent of video-on-demand streaming, including fundamental changes to reuse and balance payments; reducing the number of work weeks and the number of writers in the room; added pressure for free development and other unpaid work, and reduced opportunities for members to move up the… career ladder and produce.”
He also noted that under the WGA’s current contract, “leftovers for SVOD comedy/variety programs are pathetic.”
Among the FAQs on its website, the guild asks, “What happens when writers go on strike?”
The response: “The WGA leadership may not call a strike until membership has approved it and the current contract has expired. If a strike is called, members are prohibited from providing covered typing services to companies that do not have an agreement with the WGA. To show unity and determination, writers are striking and engaging in other collective actions that help pressure the AMPTP to improve its offering. Negotiations can continue during a strike.
“By striking and holding back their work, writers are using their influence to secure significant economic gains for all union members. A strike can also pose a financial challenge for individual authors. In the event of a strike, a strike fund committee will oversee the WGAW strike fund for members experiencing economic hardship as a result of the strike.”
The most recent WGA West financial report, filed with the U.S. Department of Labor for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, notes that 29 members still had $280,659 in strike loans outstanding from the last strike. The loans are secured by written assignments of a portion of members’ future residual income. Over time, the amount of these outstanding loans has decreased dramatically – from $841,151 in 2011.