Last Friday, August 4, the WGA and AMPTP met to negotiate proposals made by the Writer’s Guild, ending with neither side able to reach an agreement. Exactly one week later, both parties again sat down to renegotiate previously discussed and new propositions. Instead of the meeting ending in a stalemate again, they have recessed the negotiations after the companies have made counterproposal to the WGA. This second sit down comes just over 100 days after the start of the WGA going on strike. According to Deadline, the WGA sent a message to their members after today’s meeting, reading: “Your Negotiating Committee received a counterproposal from the AMPTP today. We will evaluate their offer and, after deliberation, go back to them with the WGA’s response next week…”
The WGA is on strike for things such as pay raises, protection from the use of AI writing scripts, streaming residuals based off of viewership, appropriate writers room staffing and guaranteed days of employment, and health care coverage. The first time AMPTP reached out to the WGA to extend an invitation to negotiate was August 1. Via Deadline, soon after no agreement was made, the WGA was “accusing the AMPTP of continuing to play by its same old tired anti-union playbook.” The AMPTP responded to this claim stating their only “playbook” is to have people return to work and they are querying if the WGA is an amenable negotiating party.
Via Deadline, “When a tentative agreement is eventually reached, it still would take about four days for the strike to officially end, with the contract’s approval by the governing bodies of the WGA West and WGA East and then ratification by their memberships. That’s how long it took to end the WGA’s last two strikes – in 1988 and 2007-08.” Even if the strike ends for writers, SAG-AFTRA is still on strike. Performers have been striking for almost one month alongside the WGA with their proposals not yet being discussed.
The WGA and AMPTP will again sit down next week to discuss counterproposals.