At the stroke of midnight Pacific Time on Wednesday, Hollywood writers will withdraw their strike. The strike has been going on for over five months now and with a new deal they are going to end this strike. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) said in their statement that their union leaders have “voted unanimously to lift the restraining order and end the strike”.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is an 11,500-member association and each of the members is voting. The result of this voting will determine whether a three-year deal that offers a raise in their payment of the writers and increased protections around the usage of artificial intelligence is getting approved or not. There is a separate dispute on actors who are also on strike.
The writers walking out on projects started on the 2nd of May. Later on, members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) also joined the cause on the 13th of July. This has been the longest strike that has affected Hollywood in decades. The strike was about the row over their payment and they also included the issue of using AI in the industry.
According to an estimate from Milken Institute economist Kevin Klowden, this industry has a cost of approximately $2 bn which impacts the country’s economy. The strike has shut down several top shows in America, including: Billions, The Handmaid’s Tale, Hacks, Severance, Yellowjackets, The Last of Us, Stranger Things, and Abbott Elementary. It also has stopped numerous daytime and late-night extremely popular talk shows. Many films have delayed their release date for the strike.
HBO’s host of ‘Real Time’, Bill Maher posted on social media on this cause said that some of them now can return to the air, implying the fact that he might soon be back on track starting with a fresh episode of the show this Friday. The screenwriters have stated that they have come to a tentative deal with studio bosses without disclosing any of the details of the deals. As the news was out earlier this week, people knew this strike might be coming to an end.
The negotiations include a break down over staffing levels for a steaming show and also the royalty payments that writers receive for these popular streaming shows. However, the conclusion of the WGA strike will not bring Hollywood to its normal flow, as the actors are still on strike after they walked out of their jobs in July and still fighting for their betterment.
Just like the writers, they are also looking for improved wages, better working conditions, and more health and pension benefits from their jobs. They too are keen to establish guardrails for the application of artificial intelligence in the industry. Excessive usage of AI in future television and film production might harm their career.
Yet, this WGA breakthrough could work as a pattern for SAG-AFTRA to draft their exclusive deal regarding their objections and demands. And they can make this deal with Hollywood studios to secure their future and income sources.
