WGA Strike Update: Studios Reveal Details of Their Latest Proposal as Negotiations Continue
Members of the WGA at the picket lines during the 2023 strike
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been meeting on a consistent basis with the Hollywood studios (thereafter referred to as the AMPTP, the umbrella organization that includes them in their negotiations with the guilds) to hammer out a deal that would end their over-100-day-long strike.
The studios seem to finally be in the business of ending the stoppage and have everyone back to writing by September 5 (after Labor Day). That would restart the pipeline and, after an eventual deal is also reached with the actors, get the entire industry back on its feet. For that, it seems like they are finally giving up on some of the proposals most of us thought they wouldn’t budge on, including regulations on the use of artificial intelligence and even addressing the writers’ petitions for streaming data transparency.
A deal was presented to the guild on Friday, August 11, and last week, a few details surfaced from it on various reports. While the press, especially the Penske Media-owned trades, have been mostly silent about it (except for the odd Deadline article providing updates from the picket lines or editorials asking for both sides to lock themselves in a room and don’t come out until they have a deal), all things seem to indicate that the writers didn’t immediately accept the AMPTP’s proposal. However, after meeting three or four times last week, they must think things are going in the right direction.
All the major trades reported last night that a closed-door meeting was happening again on Tuesday night, and reading between the lines, it seems like a deal must be quite close. The studios have also decided to use some bargaining power by revealing to the public the details of the deal they offered the writers on August 11, which you may find below.
From what we could read last week, it seems like the writers are still concerned some of the core issues, especially the minimum writing staff for writers’ rooms, have not been fully addressed. (This is even something that showrunners within the guild are likely split on; case in point: should Jon Favreau be forced to hire four writers to develop The Mandalorian with him even if he wants to write it by himself?) The studios must have thought this would be an acceptable deal for everyone involved, which is why they must be looking into getting some PR points.
Here are the highlights, from Deadline:
- Streaming data transparency: The AMPTP has agreed to provide the WGA with quarterly, private reports that would detail the number of hours watched of their own programming in their streaming services. This would allow them to negotiate down the line a new residuals model for SVOD.
- AI regulation: The AMPTP guarantees they will not be crediting whatever a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) algorithm creates as literary material, nor will the neural network be credited for it. They promise no writer will be disadvantaged, neither financially nor in credit, by the use of GAI. Moreover, if the studios decide to generate a script with artificial intelligence and later hire a writer to polish it, said writer will be paid the full fee “with no assigned material and not a rewrite”. Said work will also not be considered source material, and the studios will notify the writer that it has been artificially created in advance.
- Increase in wages: A hike of 15% in minimum weekly wages, as well as high-budget SVOD residuals.
- Minimum time of employment: Writers will be guaranteed 10 weeks of employment, with their current weekly rate increasing by 43.8% to $14,214/week.
- Showrunners will have the option to choose two mid-level writers to work on the production of the show, both of them who will be guaranteed a 20-week employment. This is made so they can one day become showrunners themselves.
You can check out the full details here. Momentum seems to be in favor of a deal being reached sooner rather than later. It seems like the writers’ petition to hire a minimum staff for TV is one of the holdouts, but reports from last week mentioned that the studios were willing to give showrunners the power to choose how many writers they wanted in their team, which the guild may have not considered enough. As they seek a quick end with what they must consider an acceptable proposal, the AMPTP clearly wanted to put the WGA against the ropes by disclosing their latest proposal.
The guild itself sent out an email to its members addressing the studios’ move, calling out their playbook and saying the deal lacked enough protection for the writers. Here is their memo, via TheWrap:
After 102 days of being on strike and of AMPTP silence, the companies began to bargain with us on August 11th, presenting us for the first time with a counteroffer.
We responded to their counter at the beginning of last week and engaged in further discussions throughout the week.
On Monday of this week, we received an invitation to meet with Bob Iger, Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos, David Zaslav, and Carol Lombardini. It was accompanied by a message that it was past time to end this strike and that the companies were finally ready to bargain a deal.
We accepted that invitation and, in good faith, met tonight, in hopes that the companies were serious about getting the industry back to work.
Instead, on the 113th day of the strike – and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side – we were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was.
We explained all the ways in which their counter’s limitations and loopholes and omissions failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place. We told them that a strike has a price, and that price is an answer to all – and not just some – of the problems they have created in the business.
But this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals.
This was the companies’ plan from the beginning – not to bargain, but to jam us. It is their only strategy – to bet that we will turn on each other.
Tomorrow we will send a more detailed description of the state of the negotiations. And we will see you all out on the picket lines so that the companies continue to see what labor power looks like.
We will be keeping up with the latest details in the coming days, hoping that the strike will come to a conclusion sooner rather than later. Even if a deal is reached this week, though, it will still take a bit for every detail to be finalized, so don’t expect Craig Mazin to be writing The Last of Us season 2 by next week.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
