The long-running writers’ strike appears to be over

by Dan Cooper |
writers' strike reaches a tentative agreement, as confirmed by the WGA on Twitter/X.
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Both parties in the writers’ strike have come to a ‘tentative agreement’, paving the way for the conclusion to a dispute which began 146 days ago.

After around five months of industrial action, it appears that the long-running dispute between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) may be coming to an end. Since the sides came together again last week and signalled that negotiations were finally proving fruitful, hope has been rising that an agreement would be reached and this has proven to be the case.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, in a letter to members, the guild stated: “We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA [Minimum Basic Agreement], which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language”.

The statement goes on to remark: “We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”

It will be a few days before the deal is ratified by the Guild’s membership and the writers’ strike officially ends but that process should simply be a formality. Over on Twitter/X, the WGA announced the tentative agreement with a bold-looking graphic:

The outlet states that in the renewed negotiations, the alliance of studios made ‘moves on issues including AI, TV staffing and residual compensation tied to streaming show performance.’ We’ll likely get to hear more about the deal over the coming days as details are shared with WGA membership.

Those details really are important too: the Directors Guild of America negotiations with the AMPTP led to an agreement back in June (amid much high-fiving) before the details were pored over and criticised by some quarters of the creative community for giving up too much ground. Considering that the WGA has instructed its members not to work for some five months now, it must (and surely has) have negotiated an impressive deal. If history is anything to go by, the WGA has been pretty strong in this regard.

There’s lots of reasons to feel positive this morning, even if the ongoing actors’ strike means an immediate Hollywood start-up is still off the cards. With the writers having agreed a new ‘baseline’ level of terms though, it might make reaching a deal for the actors’ guild that little bit easier. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.

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