UPDATED with WGA-AMPTP joint statement: The Writers Guild has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end its strike after nearly five months. The parties finalized the framework of the deal Sunday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels. "The WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement," the WGA and the AMPTP said in a joint statement this evening.
"We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language," the WGA told its members in a release, which came just after sunset and the start of the Yom Kippur holiday that many had seen deadline to wrap up deal after five days of long negotiations.
Details of the WGA's tentative agreement haven't been released, but will be revealed by the guild in advance of the membership ratification votes.
Next steps in process will see the Ellen Stutzman-led WGA negotiating committee vote on "whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval" in votes tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, the guild said tonight. Another vote by the respective board and council could lift the strike"restraining order" and allow scribes to "return to work during the ratification vote" – a big deal for both the WGA and the studios. Pending those votes, the WGA told its members that it is still on strike, but that all picketing is hereby suspended.
Virtual discussions began mid-afternoon between negotiating committees for the WGA and the AMPTP. Along with the fine tuning on issues like AI and staffing one element of some continuing dispute today was around back-to-work schedules and protocols.
The studios also inquired if, once a tentative agreement is ratified by the scribes, if the writers would pick up their pens and hit their keyboards again very soon afterwards. The guild, from what we understand, had made the request that their members not return to work until SAG-AFTRA also had a new agreement with the AMPTP, reflective of the WGA's feeling of solidarity between the two unions that has characterized their first mutual strike since 1960. It seems a pathway to split the difference was found.
With all that, it will take a few days for the strike to be officially over as the WGA West and WGA East proceed with their ratification process. During the WGA's last strike in 2007-08, a tentative agreement was reached on the 96th day and it wasn't over until the 100th.
The first shows to shut down when the current WGA strike began on May 2 – late-night comedy shows and daytime talk shows – will be able to return to air almost immediately because SAG-AFTRA's ongoing strike doesn't include them as struck productions. Films and scripted TV shows that didn't sign Interim Agreements with SAG-AFTRA will remain dark until that strike is settled as well.
All attention will now turn to ratifying the WGA deal and getting SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP back to the bargaining table to work out a deal to end the actors' strike, which has now been going on for 73 days.
Hollywood and the entertainment industry can breathe just a little easier, but economists estimated that the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have cost California's economy some $5 billion.
