Hollywood writers strike to reach 100 days

A Writers Guild of America strike against major media companies has turned into a marathon.

Labor hit the 100-day mark on Wednesday — a milestone commensurate with the duration of the bitter crack 15 years ago, when screenwriters demanded compensation for offers distributed online. At that time, the Internet was just a speck of media companies’ business. Now, the two sides are grappling over the fallout from the rapid switch to streaming.

And there is no end in sight to the confrontation, which escalated last month after the actors’ union joined the writers in sit-in lines.

Some observers expect Hollywood’s hot working summer to extend well into the fall, disrupting the new season on broadcast television, thwarting movie marketing campaigns, possibly driving vacations and creating more economic fallout for Los Angeles and its privileged industry.

Representatives of the WGA and the studios keep their distance from each other on issues that are central to the writers. There is also an apparent lack of trust between the two sides, reflected in heated rhetoric in union statements, social media posts and on picket lines.

Last Friday, at the companies’ invitation, WGA chief negotiator Eileen Stutzman and WGA West general counsel Tony Segal met with AMPTP chief negotiator Carol Lombardini to see if there was a chance to resume talks that have been stalled since May 1.

But even this modest goal has proven elusive.

The highly anticipated meeting at the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers headquarters in Sherman Oaks went badly, according to people on both sides of the dispute who weren’t allowed to speak publicly. The alliance is negotiating on behalf of The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Amazon and other media and broadcast companies.

Tensions between the two sides resurfaced on Tuesday when the WGA released a statement by negotiating committee members Chris Keyser and David Goodman blaming the studios for the deadlock in the bargain.

“The refusal to take the writers’ reasonable proposals seriously caused the WGA strike to last 100 days. They and their members’ studios are fully responsible for shutting down the industry for more than three months and the pain it has caused to workers and all others whose livelihoods depend on this work.” .”

An AMPTP representative did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

The WGA has argued that it is becoming increasingly difficult to earn a living wage in Hollywood, in large part because fewer television episodes are being produced for a streaming series than for a traditional network television program. For writers, shifting means less work and smaller paychecks.

To mitigate the problem, the 11,500-member union has demanded minimum staffing requirements for writers’ rooms, increased compensation based on the success of streaming shows and limits on the use of AI.

The studios said they were willing to discuss AI but not minimum hiring requirements. They also drew a line about revenue sharing for streaming shows – which led to a standoff.

People close to the negotiations, who were not authorized to comment, described AMPTP representatives as frustrated last week with the WGA’s request to add new demands. One such request was to extend health benefits to members. Another provision would allow writers to honor the picket lines of sister unions, such as SAG-AFTRA, which began their strike in mid-July.

Such an agreement means no writing will take place until AMPTP settles both strikes currently crippling Hollywood.

“In their statement, Keyser and Goodman said the cost of settling the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes was far less than the damage done by their stubbornness. “In the end, the studios have no choice but to make a fair deal. Until then, we remain resolute and united.”

Near the conclusion of Friday’s meeting, Lombardini said she would refer the issues raised to the studio executives she represents. There is some hope in the industry that AMPTP will try again to restart the talks, but it is unclear if and when that will happen.

“I think all of us in this business are very eager to find a solution as quickly as possible,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told Wall Street analysts on an earnings call last week.

The three-month strike was already hurting the economy of Los Angeles, which is grappling with hotel workers’ strikes and a one-day work stoppage on Tuesday by more than 7,000 workers in the city.

Members of the Service Employees International Union Local 721, which includes rescuers, city trash haulers and animal shelter helpers, protested the conditions and what they called stalled bargaining.

The Hollywood twin strikes were devastating for crew members and the companies that support the film industry. Economists have estimated financial losses, including lost compensation, at more than $3 billion. But they say the true cost will depend largely on the length of downtime.

The current standoff between the WGA and the studios has spanned 14 weeks—surpassing the 96-day writers’ strike of 1981, which resulted in a landmark deal that guaranteed writers a share of the product’s revenue from pay-TV and home videotape sales.

Hollywood writers’ longest strike was the 1988 dispute, which lasted 22 weeks as the two sides fought over remaining payments for TV shows broadcast in foreign countries.

For now, neither side seems ready to make major concessions.

There is a theory in the field of negotiation that “conflict has to be ripe,” said Andrea Schneider, director of the Kukin Conflict Resolution Program at Cardozo College of Law in New York.

“There has to be a mutually painful stalemate before you can bring the parties to the negotiating table,” she said. “But in this case, the studios seem willing to take some of the financial pain.”

The situation may call for an outside force, an “influential medium,” she said, adding that this person or people could be high-profile studio heads, top talent agents, actors who double as producers, showrunners — or politicians.

“It sounds like we have to have a summit. But who has enough persuasion and Hollywood savvy to say, ‘Look, let’s pull this all together?’” Schneider asked.

Some have suggested that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos could step into the role of power broker in the industry. Behind the scenes, Sarandos and Sony Pictures Entertainment president Tony Vinciqueira have been particularly active in trying to find ways to bring the two sides together, insiders said. Netflix, Sony and AMPTP declined to comment.

Fifteen years ago, high-profile TV planners — who had so much at stake in being out of action for so long — worked back channels with studio heads trying to push the syndicate toward a deal with AMPTP.

“Normally what happens is you start to see alliances fall apart,” Schneider said, adding that traditional studios seeking a deal may start to persuade the other members of AMPTP to make concessions. “They might say: This is unacceptable and we are not all in the same boat.”

Scott Purdy, a US national media industry leader for audit, tax and advisory services KPMG, said broadcast and worker concerns that artificial intelligence could eventually be used to replace them have cast a long shadow over the talks.

“Frameworks and policies to address the known and unknown effects that AI is having on writers, actors, and creators are essential to moving the conversation forward,” Purdy said.

Times staff writers Scott Wilson and Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.