Negotiators for the WGA have unanimously recommended the Writer’s Guild of America accept the latest proposal worked out via informal discussions between the entertainment writers’ union and Hollywood producers represented by the AMPTP. A general membership meeting to inform writers of the details of the deal was held Saturday, and on Sunday union leaders held a press conference recommending the Guild accept the deal and calling for a full membership vote and a quick end to the strike, now entering its fourth month.
Details of the deal proposed for acceptance are now starting to emerge and while it’s not every single thing the writers wanted, it is quite similar to the deal accepted by the Directors Guild of America in negotiations with the AMPTP a few weeks ago. While the full membership vote will take two or three weeks to complete, it is expected that writers will return to work sometime early this week, potentially as soon as Wednesday.
“This is the best deal this guild has bargained for in 30 years,” said Patric Verrone, leader of the WGA’s West Coast branch. “If they (producers) get paid, we get paid. This contract makes that a reality.”
The tentative contract secures writers a share of the burgeoning digital-media market, Verrone said during the press confernece, including compensation for Internet-delivered TV shows and movies. In fact, in that respect, the WGA deal is an improvement of the DGA deal. The DGA deal calls for directors to get paid a flat fee on Internet broadcasts for all three years of the agreement. The WGA deal potentially improves on that by accepting a flat fee for the first two years of the agreement, but allowing for a percentage payment to be made in the third year of the deal.
Like the DGA’s labor agreement, the WGA’s pact would run for three years, guaranteeing labor peace until only the 2010-2011 season. However, since this was the WGA’s first strike in 20 years, it is hoped that future contracts will build off the gains made in this deal, and future contracts can be negotiated without a production-halting strike.
Before any Hollywood analysts start booting up the budget software to amortize the cost of the strike, however, it should be pointed out that the Screen Actors Guild also have a labor agreement expiring in June and they have not even sat down with the AMPTP yet; if negotiations go south and SAG goes on strike, too, Hollywood labor peace could be short-lived.
