Editorial credit: Jack Quillin / Shutterstock.com
After nearly 150 days on strike, the Writers Guild of America this week reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new three-year Minimum Basic Agreement, with the Negotiating Committee, the WGAW Board and WGAE Council all voting unanimously to recommend. The deal will now go to both guilds’ memberships for a ratification vote from October 2nd through October 9th. The WGAW Board and WGAE Council also voted to end the strike as of 12:01 am on Wednesday.
Highlights of the deal include specific rules about the use of artificial intelligence, pay increases up to 5%, increased health and pension contributions, and increased residuals and transparency for streaming content—much of which the union was told they’d never be able to achieve.
“What we have won in this contract—most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd—is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days,” said the WGA Negotiating Commitment in a statement posted to the union’s website. “It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal. We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional—with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”
Read the complete tentative agreement, as codified in the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), here. The WGA has also provided a short Summary of the MOA as well as a pretty stunning summary of what the negotiating team won that compares the status of negotiations on May 1st and what they achieved on September 24 after nearly 5 months on strike, proving that when we fight, we win!
Watch WGA East Executive Director Lowell Peterson celebrate the victory at this week’s Solidarity Picket with SAG-AFTRA and the UAW. And make sure to scroll down to upcoming events for next week’s pickets with members of SAG-AFTRA who are still out holding the line!
