The WGA will begin bargaining March 23 for a new film and TV contract with management’s Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, Deadline has confirmed. The guild’s current contract expires May 1.
WGA West president David A. Goodman and WGA East president Beau Willimon told guild members last month that “The 2020 Minimum Basic Agreement negotiations will take place in the context of an expanding media industry that is experiencing record profits. The broad goal of our negotiating committee will be to build on the gains achieved in past contracts, and to ensure that writers receive their fair share of the proceeds generated by the content they create.”
The guilds’ members overwhelmingly approved a Pattern of Demands last month that called for increased minimum compensation “in all areas” and improved residuals for reuse markets. The WGA demands originally called for a “signatory companies to negotiate only with agents franchised by the WGA,” which threatened to drag the major companies into the guild’s 11-month battle with the major talent agencies over packaging fees. The AMPTP flatly rejected that same proposal a year ago. Guild leaders have reportedly told showrunners that it plans to drop that demand, although it’s still listed among the “Pattern of Demands” posted on the WGA West’s website. The WGA declined comment.
The WGA last struck the film and TV industry in 2007-2008 – a strike that lasted 100 days.
The AMPTP reached a tentative agreement on a new film and TV contract with the DGA earlier this week, and may expect those terms to set the pattern of bargaining in its upcoming talks with the WGA, and later, with SAG-AFTRA, whose contract expires June 30.