Writers Guild And Studio Producers Narrowly Avoid Strike, Reach Tentative Agreement

With a strike looming, Hollywood writers and studios tentatively agreed on a new three-year deal early Tuesday – 1 a.m. on the West Coast, to be exact.

The Writer’s Guild of America, West and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers did not seem as though they were going to strike a deal heading into Tuesday. If this had been the case, writers would have gone on a strike similar to the one in 2007, which lasted fourteen weeks.

“Did we get everything we wanted? No. Everything we deserve? Certainly not,” a statement read on the Writer’s Guild, West’s website. “But because we had the near-unanimous backing of you and your fellow writers, we were able to achieve a deal that will net this Guild’s members $130 million more, over the life of the contract, than the pattern we were expected to accept.”

The Writer’s Guild, West won a raise in minimums across the board and won big with health care. Along with the new health care plan comes job protections during parental leave, something that has not been guaranteed in the past.

During negotiations, the Writer’s Guild, West strongly advocated that streaming services pay writers the same as a major broadcasting network might. Ultimately, this demand was not met. Changes in technology and the way audiences watch television and movies played a big role in causing the strike in 2007.

Writers also won on the topic of short television seasons. Where as in the past, a full season of a show may last 22-episodes, seasons these days may only last six. On top of that, production for each episode used to last around 2 weeks but it now takes about 3 weeks to produce an episode. This means that writers, who get paid per-episode, are working longer per-episode but making less episodes. Their pay, previously, had not reflected this change. As part of the new agreement, a short season is now defined as 2.4 weeks of work per-episode, with any time after that constituting as over-time.

The current agreement will expire in May of 2020.