US writers’ guilds in strike-ending bargain
A TV writers’ strike was narrowly avoided yesterday when screenwriters and producers struck a tentative three-year agreement.
The previous contract between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired at midnight Pacific time. Hoping to avoid a strike that would see about 12 000 screenwriters immediately stop working, the two parties negotiated until the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Associated Press reported.
The deal requires ratification by members of the Writers Guild of America.
“The Writers Guilds of America, West and East, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have concluded negotiations and reached a tentative agreement on terms for a new three-year collective bargaining agreement,” the WGA said in a statement.
Details are scant at this time. Both parties held a media blackout during negotiations. However, former WGA president Patric Verrone told The Hollywood Reporter the deal was positive for writers.
Negotiations, mostly concerning health care and compensation, began on March 13. Last month, the WGA voted to authorise their union to call a strike.
Such a strike would have cost the California economy $200 million (R2.6 billion) a week and may have triggered cord-cutting by many television watchers as a strike’s effects wouldn’t be immediately noticeable on streaming services, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It would have probably been immediately noticeable in late night comedy television, “where daily or weekly episodes are churned out of New York or Los Angeles, with legions of writers penning jokes, monologues, and elaborate sketches,” The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi reported.