Writers Guild Ratifies Strike-Ending Contract With Studios

It’s officially over: The Writers Guild of America has ratified the three-year contract deal that ended the second-longest strike in the union’s history.

Ninety-nine percent of union members voted to support the contract in a vote that ended on Monday; the WGA says of the 8,525 valid votes cast there were 8,435 “yes” votes and 90 “no” votes (1 percent). The term of the new agreement is from Sept. 25, 2023, through May 1, 2026.

“Through solidarity and determination, we have ratified a contract with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of our combined membership,” said WGAW president Meredith Stiehm. “Together we were able to accomplish what many said was impossible only six months ago. We would not have been able to achieve this industry-changing contract without WGA chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman, negotiating committee co-chairs Chris Keyser and David A. Goodman, the entire WGA negotiating committee, strike captains, lot coordinators, and the staff that supported every part of the negotiation and strike.”

The ratification marks the conclusion to the WGA’s turbulent 2023 bargaining cycle, which sparked a historic 148-day strike. After holding a strike authorization vote during a brief break from negotiations in the spring, union leaders officially called a work stoppage of around 11,500 scribes on May 2. As the strike got going, WGA members not only ceased their writing work but also set up picket lines in front of ongoing productions, seeking to shut them down as crew members and other workers refused to cross these barriers in solidarity. The strategy proved to be effective in disrupting day-to-day set work in Hollywood even before SAG-AFTRA called its own strike (which scrapped virtually all production) on July 14.

“Now it’s time for the AMPTP to put the rest of the town back to work by negotiating a fair contract with our SAG-AFTRA siblings, who have supported writers throughout our negotiations,” said WGAE president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. “Until the studios make a deal that addresses the needs of performers, WGA members will be on the picket lines, walking side-by-side with SAG-AFTRA in solidarity.”

Multiple stops and starts to the talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ensued, and in the meantime a broad swath of industry workers were affected: Food insecurity among industry workers spiked as the months dragged on, and some workers reported facing eviction. Ultimately, only the entrance of some of the industry’s top leaders was able to finally break the impasse. Starting in late September, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Disney CEO Bob Iger and NBCUniversal Studio Group chairman and chief content officer Donna Langley began attending regular bargaining sessions and speaking with guild leaders directly. The deal then got wrapped up in a matter of (marathon) days: The WGA announced a tentative deal on the evening of Sept. 24, after a long weekend of negotiations.

“The AMPTP member companies congratulate the WGA on the ratification of its new contract, which represents meaningful gains and protections for writers. It is important progress for our industry that writers are back to work,” the AMPTP said in a statement Monday.

Even though expectations were precipitously high for this strike-time deal, before the ratification vote many writers reported being satisfied with its gains. “It’s a road map. People are going to study it like the Torah,” one showrunner told The Hollywood Reporter after the details of the pact were revealed in September. The union managed to wrest gains from studios that many thought were unlikely at the beginning of the strike on items like setting minimum staffing requirements for television work and gaining a success-based residual for titles that perform well on streaming platforms. The writers also gained regulations on the use of A.I. in writing work, a second “step” (draft, or point of payment) for screenwriters and a new foreign residuals formula.

When asked by THR in late September what he wished would be the 2023 negotiations’ lasting legacy, WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser responded, “This was a moment, as people have said, of labor power where labor said, ‘We are no longer OK with being ignored.’ “