WGA Calls for Strike Vote Next Week
Wilson Chapman
After months of speculation and complaints, the Writers Guild of America has officially called for a strike vote.
The WGA’s West branch announced the strike vote via a Twitter thread posted Monday, calling for members to support a strike via a yes vote. Should the vote pass, a work stoppage would begin after the guild’s current contract expires on May 1. The thread also urged members to check for details regarding the vote in their emails.
“Over the past decade, the companies embraced business practices that slashed our compensation and undermined our working conditions,” the official Twitter account for WGA West wrote. “We are asking to restore writer pay & conditions to reflect our value to this industry. The survival of our profession is at stake.”
The studios need to respond to the crisis writers face. WGA members must demonstrate our willingness to fight for the contract writers need and deserve by supporting a strike authorization vote. 1/3 #1u
— Writers Guild of America West (@WGAWest) April 3, 2023
A representative for WGA declined to comment on the news to IndieWire, beyond what the organization announced via Twitter.
According to Deadline, voting for a strike will begin on Tuesday, April 11 and end on Monday, April 17. Deadline further reports that the email sent to members states that the strike vote comes after AMPTP (or the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) “failed to offer meaningful responses on the core economic issues in any of the WGA’s primary work areas — screen, episodic television and comedy-variety.”
A Writers Guild strike has been anticipated for months, as the May 1 expiration of the guild’s current three year contract has loomed over Hollywood. Negotiations between the guild and the AMPTP began on March 20, and lasted for two weeks. Prior to the vote, on March 7 the guild announced 98.4% of its members voted in favor of its “pattern of demands” for the new contract, which focused on increasing minimum compensation of writers and bumping up the residuals provided to writers from streaming. A strike also received support from prominent figures in Hollywood, including Charlie Kaufman in a speech during the guild’s annual awards.
The WGA have gone on strike several times in their history, including in 1960, 1981, and 1988. The most recent WGA strike began in November 2007 and lasted until February 2008, for 100 days. At the time, the WGA was demanding increased funds for writers; it was resolved after the Guild won a new percentage payment for digital distribution on titles for writers and requirements that streamers hire WGA writers on shows over a certain budget.
Aside from the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America will also go into renegotiation on contracts with AMPTP, before their current agreements expire on June 30.
