Good for them! Hopefully more Americans take notice
Well done!! Strike works! Collective action works!!
In case you’re also interested in what’s actually been agreed on…
The exact language of the contract is yet to be released. But from the WGA summary, it appears the union was successful in its effort. The MOA includes increases to minimum wage and compensation, increased pension and health fund rates, improvements to terms for length of employment and size of writing teams (which had been shrinking drastically in recent years), and better residuals (which are like royalties), including foreign streaming residuals.
The MOA also lays out terms for artificial intelligence, with an agreement that doesn’t prevent writers or productions from making use of generative AI but prohibits using software to reduce or eliminate writers and their pay. “A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services, if the company consents and provided that the writer follows applicable company policies, but the company can’t require the writer to use AI software (e.g., ChatGPT) when performing writing services,” the MOA states.
Additionally, “the WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law” — a major issue given many authors’ recent discovery that their work is being used to train AI owned by Meta and other companies.
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The strike officially ended in the wee hours of Wednesday, September 27, and the union’s membership will begin their vote on Monday, October 2.
President Joe Biden, who is set to join striking auto workers on their picket line on Tuesday, issued a statement applauding the writers’ tentative deal.
“There simply is no substitute for employers and employees coming together to negotiate in good faith toward an agreement that makes a business stronger and secures the pay, benefits, and dignity that workers deserve,” he said.
TV and film production doesn’t happen overnight, and while it will likely ramp up rapidly once the actors come back to work, the lengthy strike has caused inevitable delays and hiccups.
It seems unlikely that movies like Dune: Part Two, which was pushed into 2024, will be pulled back onto the 2023 schedule once actors and writers are permitted by their unions to promote work again.
For now, though, the focus is likely to be on recovery, in an industry that’s already reeling from years of potentially bad financial decisions, Covid delays, and existential struggles.
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The American workforce is only 10% unionized.
this is a pretty good article covering the contract and noting that it’s only an agreement with WGA (not SAG-AFTA) but i want to correct one point they make:
No. TV and film production doesn’t happen overnight, and while it will likely ramp up rapidly once the actors come back to work, the lengthy strike has caused inevitable delays and hiccups.
the delays have been caused by greedy execs who were literally hoping to starve their writers out instead of granting them contractual protections and paying them fairly
the execs have caused these delays and ultimately cost their corporations far more than what they’d have lost just agreeing to this contract in the first place
don’t forget that point. everything sucks because of shitty execs. nothing but greed and reluctance to acknowledge worker power was stopping them from coming to the table four months ago
