Hollywood television and film writers will begin returning to work on Wednesday, nearly five months after the Writer’s Guild of America strike began.
After the WGA announced on Sunday a “tentative” deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing the studios and producers, the WGA’s internal boards voted unanimously to end the strike and send the tentative contract to members to ratify. The members are expected to approve the agreement.
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The screenwriters started striking on May 2 in pursuit of higher pay, better treatment, and assurances on artificial intelligence, among other things. While they did not secure all of their demands, the agreement, stretching more than two and a half years, did garner them significant victories.
The deal, if ratified, does indeed secure better pay for writers, such as guaranteed compensation and “minimums increases,” as well as increased health and pension contribution rates and protections against artificial intelligence. Comedian and writer Adam Conover lauded the work of the WGA in securing the deal.
“These are essential protections that the companies told us, to our faces, that they would NEVER give us,” Conover wrote on social media. “But because of our solidarity, because they literally cannot make a dollar without us, they bent, then broke, and gave us what we deserve. WE WON.”
“We didn’t win everything, but we TRIPLED what they offered before the strike,” he added.
The return of WGA screenwriters — of which there are 11,500 — to work will ease fears from studios, writers, and fans alike after shows and projects were forced to shut down in the wake of the strike, causing a massive and unsurprising economic fallout. However, all is not back to normal in Hollywood, with tens of thousands of actors still striking and no talks between the actors union SAG-AFTRA and the studios scheduled.
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And while the WGA announced on Sunday that it was “suspending WGA picketing,” it encouraged its members to picket with SAG-AFTRA, whose actors are demanding similar protections as the writers did. SAG-AFTRA was quick to congratulate the screenwriters for their agreement with the studios.
Shows that do not include actors but just hosts, such as Real Time with Bill Maher and the Drew Barrymore Show, are likely to return sooner, with the former already announcing its comeback on Friday. But the future is more murky for series that rely on ensemble casts, with the battle between the studios and striking actors dragging on.
