Tuesday morning members of The Writers Guild West (WGA) and East (WGA East) put down their pencils, closed their laptops, picked up picket signs and in enthusiastic solidarity, picketed in front of members of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers which includes Apple, Amazon, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros.
The walkouts took place after talks between the Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke off at 12:01 a.m. May 1.
The Guild is seeking higher compensation for writers, higher wage floors across the board, standardizing fees for streaming and theatrical films, expanding span protection (which shields writers being compensated per episode from working for long periods on short-order series), regulating mini rooms and instituting a mandatory two “steps” (points of payment) for feature writers.
So, with writers taking to the streets, we would expect to see some very witty picket signs and we were not let down. Whether threatening to spoil Succession, asking “Amazon where’s my $tuff?” or calling for the release of Batgirl, the one-liners were out there. Here are some of the most quotable and notable of them.
REELated:
Before the talks broke off, however, the two sides had reached tentative agreements on several issues, including script fees for staff writers; improvements in the guild’s span provisions, which offer protection against the erosion of over-scale pay for writer-producers on short-order series, and an easing of burdensome options and exclusivity provisions that hold staff writers long-term without pay.
The two sides were very far apart on money issues, however. The guild wants to see pay and benefits increased by $429 million over three years, but says that the studios only offered $86 million.
