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It’s been a busy August for negotiators from the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
On the 102nd day of work stoppage for over 11,500 film and TV writers, the AMPTP presented the studios’ first counterproposals to the WGA negotiating team, along with an agreement for a media blackout. But 10 days later, on August 22nd, the studios broke that blackout and released the details of its proposals to the media — virtually stopping any progress made at the negotiating table.
But how did we get here, and what exactly is in those proposals?
“Neither Nothing, nor Nearly Enough”
It’s been a historic summer in Hollywood: The WGA called for its first strike in 15 years last May and was followed by the SAG-AFTRA in July. It’s the first time in six decades that both unions are on strike simultaneously.
Things heated up last August 4 when the WGA and the AMPTP met for the first time in months to talk about resuming negotiations. The two parties met again on the 11th, this time to discuss the AMPTP’s first counterproposals since the start of the strike. That meeting was followed by several more.
But on August 22, amidst workers’ protest action on the National Day of Solidarity, the AMPTP invited the WGA for a talk about “how good their single and only counteroffer was.” Just 20 minutes later, and despite the agreed-upon media blackout, the AMPTP released its own summary of the counterproposals to the press.
“This new package substantially improves upon the AMPTP’s prior proposals,” the studios said in a statement. “The comprehensive package also features first-of-their-kind offers for writers, including unprecedented terms in the areas of Generative Artificial Intelligence, data transparency and minimum staffing.”
For their part, the WGA has described the counterproposals as “neither nothing, nor nearly enough.”
Let’s break down some of the key points in the counterproposal.
The Good
The main good thing about the AMPTP’s counterproposals for the WGA is that they’re not nothing — they’re definitely more than the radio silence that began after negotiations failed last April.
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One area that saw movement in negotiations was minimum pay increases. The WGA’s initial proposal was a minimum pay increase of 6% in year one and 5% in years two and three. Last May, the counter-offer from the AMPTP was 4% in year one and 2% in years two and three, alongside a one-time residual base increase of 2-2.5%.
The new AMPTP counterproposal includes a 5% increase in year one, a 4% increase in year two, and a 3.5% increase in year three, alongside higher guarantees for a class of writers called Article 14 writers, or those who also serve as producers. It’s not exactly what the WGA asked for, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
The counterproposal had similar improvements in payments for rewrites and for work done on Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) movies.
The AMPTP had also budged on issues they outright refused to discuss earlier this year, such as minimum staffing, minimum length of employment, mini-rooms (or development rooms), artificial intelligence (AI), and transparency over streaming numbers.
Unfortunately, all this doesn’t amount to much, as they don’t address the core issues writers are striking for in the first place.
The Bad
For starters, the proposed pay bump is still far smaller compared to how much writer income has declined over the last decade.
Other pay-related counterproposals also only cover a small group of writers, such as Article 14 writers and those who work in comedy-variety. Lastly, the point on rewrites includes a tricky loophole: Studios only commit to paying for rewrites when the film is “an original screenplay” and not an adaptation.
Transparency over streaming data — which can be used to update the decades-old residuals system that pays writers and actors for reruns of their work — is another critical issue. In May, the AMPTP rejected the WGA’s proposal to establish a viewership-based residual system that would reward programs with higher viewership while also requiring transparency regarding streaming views.
The new counterproposal, however, is bizarre.
The studios will commit to providing viewership data on a quarterly basis — but only to six WGA staff. No WGA writer can be informed by their union about how well their project is doing, and they will not receive residuals based on that data. The AMPTP has explained that the data can be used by the WGA to propose a new residual system “in the future.”
It’s even more ridiculous when you find out that Netflix has already been giving performance-based residuals in countries like Germany and Sweden.
Negotiations over AI, too, aren’t anywhere near done. The WGA had proposed a ban on AI-generating material as the basis for writers’ work, as well as a ban on using WGA work to train AI.
While the AMPTP outright rejected the proposal in May, their August counterproposal is a very modest improvement: They promise to never recognize AI as a writer, and to pay writers the original fee when asking them to rewrite AI-based material. They promise to inform writers when they are given material generated by AI, but there are no promises on how they might use WGA work to train AI.
The last major loophole is in the counterproposals for minimum staffing. Where the WGA proposed a 6-person writing room minimum pre-greenlight and one writer per episode up to six episodes post-greenlight, the new AMPTP offer says that a showrunner “may select” at least two writers to work with them.
This is tricky for two reasons. First, the term “showrunner” is not clearly defined in the minimum basic agreement, and some studios have already begun assigning the title to producers and not writers. Some have stopped hiring showrunners at all. Second, and perhaps more insidious, is that passing the decision off to the showrunner can mean that studios can then pressure showrunners not to select more writers in the future.
All in all, it doesn’t solve the problem of shrinking writers’ rooms.
The Ugly
The most problematic part of the AMPTP’s counterproposal isn’t in the terms themselves. Rather, it’s the choice to release it to the press and telling the WGA that it’s the first and only counterproposal the studios are willing to make — a “take it or leave it” move over 100 days into an industry-crippling strike.
Writers on the picket lines and on social media have slammed this decision, which is considered an effort to sow division within WGA membership and among the different Hollywood unions marching together. Many have pointed out that the move was meant to not only try and salvage the AMPTP’s public image but also to circumvent WGA leadership and encourage WGA members to pressure their negotiating committee to accept a deal.
Andrea Schneider, director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, has told the LA Times that this might be in conflict with laws on collective bargaining. “They are trying to appeal to the union membership directly, which is a violation of the duty to bargain in good faith,” said Schneider.
In a statement released after the AMPTP counterproposals were released to the press, the WGA said, “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.”
What Now?
Claiming that they have no money to pay writers and actors fairly, the AMPTP has since hired a new crisis PR firm (their third since the start of the strike) in an effort to shift the narrative — and they’ve got their work cut out for them. Carol Lombardini, president of the AMPTP, has been under fire for claiming that writers “are lucky to have term employment,” while Disney CEO Bob Iger has called worker demands “not realistic.”
The obvious solution to the PR problem, of course, is to end the strikes by giving writers and actors what they want — which, when compared to the companies’ annual revenues, isn’t much at all. But given recent events, that doesn’t seem to be something the AMPTP is willing to do.
Despite this, the WGA has said that it is still committed to continuing negotiations for a fair labor contract. In its latest negotiations update, the union wrote, “We have not struck for nearly four months to half-save ourselves, nor are we leaving any sector of this Guild unprotected when we return to work.”
“Despite the AMPTP’s attempt at a detour around us, we remain committed to direct negotiations with the companies. That’s actually how a deal gets made, and the strike ends. That will be good for the rest of the industry and the companies as well,” they said. “Until then, we will see you on the picket lines.”
