WGA strike officially ends, guild releases fine print of tentative agreement

The writers’ strike started in May

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike officially ended at 00:01 Pacific Time today (Wednesday), meaning US screenwriters are permitted to work for the first time in almost five months.

The WGA West board and WGA East council yesterday voted unanimously to recommend the tentative three-year agreement, reached on Sunday with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), to its 11,000-strong membership.

The process to ratify the Minimum Basic Agreement will begin next Monday October 2, with eligible guild members given until Monday October 9 to vote on the new deal. WGA West and WGA East leadership passed a vote to end the strike while the ratification process is still underway.

Last night, the guild revealed details of the new agreement, which includes limitations on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), bonuses for widely viewed streaming originals and minimum staffing rules for writers’ rooms.

According to the WGA, the new agreement equates to around US$233m extra per year over its previous deal. Earlier in the negotiations, the WGA had pushed for a deal valued at an additional US$429m per year, while the AMPTP countered with an offer of US$86m in annual increases.

In terms of AI, which became among the most hotly debated fronts of the entire negotiation, the new agreement stipulates the following:

AI cannot write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material under the MBA, meaning that AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or separated rights; 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 (such as ChatGPT) when performing writing services; and an AMPTP company must disclose to the writer if any materials given to the writer have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material.

In addition, the WGA said it reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law.

The WGA also achieved improved terms in high-budget streaming shows, in addition to gaining access to certain streaming viewership data and a viewership-based streaming bonus.

The AMPTP has agreed to share with the WGA the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of high-budget streaming shows. The data will be subject to a confidentiality agreement, though the guild will be able to share the information with its membership in “aggregated form.” The data, it should be noted, will not be made available to the public.

The guild also gained increased foreign streaming residuals with a new formula that is based on the number of foreign subscribers a streaming service has.

In addition, the deal includes a success-based streaming bonus – something the guild pushed hard for in its negotiations. Under the new agreement, streaming original series and films that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers within the first 90 days of release will receive a bonus. That bonus will be “equal to 50% of the fixed domestic and foreign residual, with views calculated as hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by runtime,” according to the guild.

One of the much-discussed topics ahead of the strike was the use of mini rooms (or pre-greenlight rooms), which the WGA said reduced the number of writers employed on shows and allowed the studios to underpay them. In its initial proposal, the WGA pushed for a minimum staff of six writers (including four writer-producers) in pre-greenlight rooms. The final version of the tentative agreement includes a minimum staff size of three writer-producers for development rooms that run for 20 weeks or longer for the first season, while the minimum staff size in subsequent seasons will be dictated by the anticipated episode order.

For post-greenlight TV writers’ rooms, the following minimums apply: for seasons up to six episodes, a minimum of three writers (and three writer-producers) must be employed; for seasons with between seven and 12 episodes, a minimum of five writers (three writer-producers); and for seasons with 13 or more episodes, a minimum of six writers (three writer-producers).

The official end of the WGA strike brings to a close an ugly and drawn-out chapter in Hollywood history. It will mean that late-night TV shows can return to air in a relatively short time, while writers on shows that were greenlit prior to the strike will be able to resume working.

The production shutdown is not over yet, however, and the US industry’s attention now turns to actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which has been on strike against the AMPTP since mid-July.

Given the urgency shown by the AMPTP to get a deal done with the WGA over the past couple of weeks, it appears likely that the studios will now want to resolve the SAG-AFTRA dispute swiftly. Reports suggest that the two sides may look to begin speaking again later this week or next week, for the first time since actors hit the picket lines.

On Sunday, SAG-AFTRA congratulated the WGA on reaching a tentative agreement with the AMPTP, adding: “We remain on strike in our TV/theatrical contract and continue to urge the studio and streamer CEOs and the AMPTP to return to the table and make the fair deal that our members deserve and demand.”