AMPTP

SAG-AFTRA announced Wednesday that it will hold a strike authorization vote as it seeks to get its “ducks in a row” ahead of June 7 negotiations with the major studios. The vote does not mean that the performers’ union will necessarily join the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines after its contract expires on June 30. In a press release, the union said its negotiating committee decided that a strike authorization would provide “maximum bargaining leverage” for the talks.

The writers strike is now impacting overall deals. Just days into the work stoppage, major TV studios have started sending out letters to writer/producers under overall agreements, telling them that their deals are being suspended.

The first Hollywood strike in 15 years commenced Tuesday as the 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America stopped working when their contract expired. The union is seeking higher minimum pay, more writers per show and less exclusivity on single projects, among other demands — all conditions it says have been diminished in the content boom of the streaming era. (Chris Pizzello/AP)

The Writers Guild of America said that its 11,500 unionized screenwriters will head to the picket lines on Tuesday. Negotiations between studios and the writers, which began in March, failed to reach a new contract before the writers’ current deal expired just after midnight, at 12:01 a.m. PT Tuesday. All script writing is to immediately cease, the guild informed its members. The board of directors for the WGA, which includes both a West and an East branch, voted unanimously to call for a strike, effective at the stroke of midnight. Writers, they said, are facing an “existential crisis.”

Talks between the writers and the studios concluded Monday night without an agreement. A statement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said, “Negotiations between the AMPTP and the WGA concluded without an agreement today.” No word yet from the WGA but it’s expected to lead to a writers strike on Tuesday.

In the 16 years since the entertainment industry’s last strike, sweeping technological change has upended the television and movie business.

Studios have moved up deadlines for TV writers, and latenight shows are preparing to go dark. But for other segments of the industry, it’s business as usual.

The Writers Guild of America is adding pressure on Hollywood studios, highlighting how their shows and streaming platforms will be affected by a strike if it happens on May 2.

In an email to members Monday, the negotiating committee of the Writers Guild of America said nearly 98% of the 9,218 votes were cast to authorize the strike, with nearly 79% of guild members voting. The guild is currently negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a deal aimed at addressing pay and other changes brought on by the dominance of streaming services.

SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have agreed to begin formal contract negotiations on June 7. The guild’s current contract expires June 30. In a joint statement, they said that they are “approaching this process as an opportunity to engage in thoughtful and interactive conversations that result in a mutually-beneficial deal.”

As streamers face mounting pressure to save money, several are dropping shows. Erasing original shows can help streamers get tax write-downs and, to a smaller extent, save on residual payments. But it brings criticism that they are sidelining already marginalized voices and shortchanging creatives. These issues have increased tension between executives and writers amid union contract negotiations that started in March and could lead to a significant work stoppage.

The Writers Guild is taking its first step toward a potential industry strike. The union has set a strike authorization vote, with online polls opening April 11 at 8:30 p.m. and closing April 17 at 12 p.m., the guild announced to members on Monday. While a strike authorization vote does not ensure a writers strike will occur, it does gauge members’ willingness to cease work if the union deems a strike necessary.

The guild, which is currently at the table with studios and streamers over this issue and others, said Wednesday that artificial intelligence “has no role in guild-covered work, nor in the chain of title in the intellectual property.”

The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers exchanged proposals on Monday, as they prepare for face-to-face bargaining next week. Last week, the guild membership voted 98.4% in favor of the “pattern of demands,” a high-level summary of the guild’s top issues for a new basic agreement. The items include addressing “the abuses of mini-rooms” and increasing streaming residuals, among a dozen other issues. The proposals are far more detailed, and are not expected to be made public so as to preserve the confidentiality of negotiations.

The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have settled on March 20 to begin negotiations on a new master TV and film contract. The clock is already ticking and strike fears are growing. The WGA’s current contract expires May 1. Just about everybody agrees that the compensation standards for writers — as well as actors and directors, whose unions will also hold contract talks this year — have been outmoded by the streaming revolution. The hard part will be reaching a compromise on how to adapt them.

Studios and producers are preparing for a possible writers’ strike, a month before negotiations are set to begin with the Writers Guild of America.

The Writers Guild of America will begin negotiations on a new contract on March 20, as the industry holds its breath in anticipation of a possible strike. The current three-year agreement is set to expire on May 1. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced the date of the talks, making the WGA the first of the three above-the-line guilds to enter bargaining.

The streaming economy — and the writer’s place in it — will be a central theme of the upcoming talks between Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America. The union’s current contract expires on May 1, and the industry is bracing for a major battle, and what could be the first strike in 15 years. That has the entertainment business growing increasingly anxious.

Heading toward a near midnight Sunday deadline, IATSE members now have their ballots to vote on a new three-year deal with producers. The nearly 60,000 members of the below-the-line union received emails this morning starting around 6 a.m. PT prompting them to login in and digitally cast their vote.

The drama is not over. The contract must still be ratified, and many members quickly denounced it on social media. The rank and file had organized online in support of a historic strike authorization vote, sharing the pain and frustration of toiling behind the scenes in Hollywood, in hopes of getting better working conditions and pay. To them, the deal felt like the status quo. It’s not clear whether that opposition is broad enough to kill it with a no vote on the ratification — but the leadership has more work to do.

After days of marathon negotiations, representatives from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and from the studios and entertainment companies who employ them reached the three-year contract agreement before a Monday strike deadline, avoiding a serious setback for an industry that had just gotten back to work after long pandemic shutdowns.

International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees International President Matthew Loeb said Wednesday that the strike would begin at 12:01 a.m. Monday unless an agreement is reached on rest and meal periods and pay for its lowest-paid workers.

Claudia Eller: It will be a downright fiasco if the leadership of Hollywood’s studios, networks and streamers doesn’t do everything in its collective bargaining power to prevent the labor union representing camera operators, editors, production designers, grips and other workers from going out on strike.

Negotiations between the studios and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees are expected to continue on Wednesday as the sides try to avoid a strike that would shut down production and immediately cripple Hollywood’s content pipeline. In what could be taken as a sign of progress, the two sides are not saying much publicly about the negotiations.

It’s typical for Hollywood’s labor unions to support for each other during labor disputes, but the support for IATSE during its current contract dispute with film and TV producers goes beyond the usual labor solidarity. That’s because the below-the-line workers’ union could be setting a standard for all future Hollywood contracts in the streaming era.

In an overwhelming show of union solidarity, IATSE members have voted to authorize a nationwide strike against film and TV productions if last-ditch negotiations with the AMPTP fail to produce a fair deal. The vote — 98% in favor — now gives IATSE President Matthew Loeb indisputable authority to call a strike if he and AMPTP President Carol Lombardini can’t reach an agreement in the coming days.

IATSE is now gearing up for a second strike against the film and TV industry. With the union and its 13 West Coast studio locals already threatening to strike over terms for a new Hollywood Basic Agreement, IATSE is now seeking a second strike authorization vote for a separate contract covering film and TV work in much of the rest of the country.

Members of Writers Guild of America have ratified a new, three-year deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers with virtually no opposition. The WGA membership overwhelmingly voted in favor of ratifying the contract by 98% with 4,068 “yes” votes and 87 “no” votes. The term of the agreement is retroactive from May 2, 2020, through May 1, 2023.

Amid a notable rift between competing factions within the union, SAG-AFTRA members ratified its new three-year TV/theatrical deal with producers as voting ended on July 22.

The Writers Guild of America and the major studios reached a deal Tuesday night on a new agreement, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. The deal is said to include increased residuals — which likely mirror the improvements achieved by the Directors Guild and subsequently SAG-AFTRA — and improvements on span, a concept under which writers are paid additional compensation for working more than a set number of weeks on a television script.

Performers’ union SAG-AFTRA and major motion picture and television studios have reached agreement on a new three year TV/theatrical deal, the parties announced Thursday, capping six weeks of bargaining via videoconference.

The Directors Guild and management’s AMPTP will begin negotiations for a new TV and film contract on Feb. 10, making the DGA the first guild — as it has been in the last two bargaining cycles — to sit down with the companies, and thus setting the pattern of bargaining in which the AMPTP will expect the WGA and SAG-AFTRA to follow.