The results of the WGA East and WGA West strike authorization votes are in and guild members have almost unanimously voted in favor of allowing its leaders to order a strike if a tentative agreement on a new MBA is not reached by the May 1 deadline.
“Our membership has spoken,” the WGA Negotiating Committee told guild members in a memo. “You have expressed your collective strength, solidarity, and the demand for meaningful change in overwhelming numbers. Armed with this demonstration of unity and resolve, we will continue to work at the negotiating table to achieve a fair contract for all writers.”
The results, which were published by the WGA on Monday, showed that 9,020 members, or 97.85% of the overall vote, were in favor of strike authorization with only 198 votes against. That’s a higher percentage than the 90% who voted for authorization the last time WGA went on strike in 2007 or even the 96% who voted in favor the last time the WGA put forth such a vote in 2017.
Total ballots cast were 9.218 or 78.79% of eligible WGA members. These results set a new record for both turnout and the percentage of support in a strike authorization vote.
The WGA, which represents around 11,500 film and television writers, and AMPTP have been negotiating since March 20. Little to no information about progress has been released. Neither party has spoken publicly.
The WGA is seeking higher compensation for writers. This includes:
- 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
- instituting a mandatory two “steps” (points of payment) for feature writers.
The guild is additionally pushing for minimum television writing staff sizes and a minimum number of weeks of employment, THR reported in February.
REELated:
Artificial intelligence has also been a dominant part of the ongoing conversation. With the rise of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce written material, the guild is advocating to prohibit AI-produced or AI-rewritten content from being covered under the contract.
Banning companies from assigning writers adaptations of writing originally generated by the technology is also a priority.
The Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, which negotiate this year after the writers, are closely watching what the writers receive.
