The 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America are expected to start voting Monday on whether to ratify a tentative labor deal with Hollywood studios that brought the nearly five-month writers' strike to an end.
The tentative deal was announced Sept. 24 following five straight days of talks between negotiators for the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood studios. The boards of the WGA's East and West coast branches both endorsed the deal on Wednesday, clearing the way for the ratification vote, which will begin Monday and continue through Oct. 9.
But with the union boards backing the proposed deal, the WGA officially ended the strike -- which began May 2 -- on Wednesday, allowing writers to return to work.
"This (end of the WGA strike) allows writers to return to work during the ratification process, but does not affect the membership's right to make a final determination on contract approval," the Writers Guild of America negotiating committee wrote in a message to union members Tuesday. "There will be meetings for current members this week before the ratification vote begins."
Some writers have returned to work, with late-night talk shows slowly returning to the air with new episodes. But others are believed to still be honoring picket lines of the striking SAG-AFTRA actors' union. WGA negotiating committee members last week encouraged writers who are able to continue supporting the striking actors.
Labor talks between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA are set to resume Monday -- the first talks between the sides since the actors went on strike in July.
The WGA's proposed three-year contract agreement with the AMPTP was reached following a series of meetings, at least some of which were attended by the so-called "Gang of Four" group of top studio executives -- Netflix's Ted Sarandos, Disney's Bob Iger, Universal's Donna Langley and Warner Bros/Discovery's David Zaslav.
The proposed deal includes stepped increases of minimum salaries which will jump by 5% upon ratification, 4% in May 2024 and 3.5% in May 2025. There are also increases in health and pension contributions.
The proposed contract also includes restrictions on studios' use of artificial intelligence, barring AI from writing or rewriting literary material and preventing AI-generated material from being considered source material, meaning it can't "undermine a writer's credit."
The proposal also includes a new residual formula for streaming program that boosts pay for particularly successful programs. According to the guild, shows or films "that are viewed by 20% or more of the service's domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release, or in the first 90 days in any subsequent exhibition year, get a bonus equal to 50% of the fixed domestic and foreign residual, with views calculated as hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by runtime."
Also included are increases in pay for writers employed on TV series, along with employment guarantees for set numbers of writers on series, based on the number of episodes being produced.
A full summary prepared by the WGA of the contract proposal is online at wgacontract2023.org/the-campaign/summary-of-the-2023-wga-mba.
The writers' union contract proposal is likely to be used as a template on some issues during negotiations between the studios and SAG-AFTRA -- although actors are seeking steeper increases in salary.
The AMPTP previously reached a contract agreement with the Directors Guild of America.
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