Welcome to Vulture’s “Strike Recap,†or “Strike-cap,†if you will, a regular rundown of all the biggest news from the WGA and SAG picket lines.
The WGA and AMPTP reached a tentative agreement on Sunday, September 24, kicking off everyone’s favorite part of any labor action: the parsing of contract verbiage! In an email to members that night, the WGA said the exact language of the agreement is being determined. “Once the Memorandum of Agreement with the AMPTP is complete,†it read, “the Negotiating Committee will vote on whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval. The Board and Council will then vote on whether to authorize a contract ratification vote by the membership.†On Tuesday, the WGA released the terms of the contract and said the WGA strike would officially end at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, giving members a scant few hours to try to eat Drew Carey out of house and home.
SAG-AFTRA sent a message of congratulation via press release: “While we look forward to reviewing the WGA and AMPTP’s tentative agreement, we remain committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members … We remain on strike in our TV/Theatrical contract and continue to urge the studio and streamer CEOs and the AMPTP to return to the table and make the fair deal that our members deserve and demand.†One of the demands met by this new agreement is the ability for WGA members to picket alongside other strikers.
Writers also celebrated the news on social media, because duh.
More on the details of this deal, the unprecedented support for strikes from the White House, and what’s next below.
Deets, deets, deets
The WGA released a summary of the tentative deal brokered with the AMPTP on Tuesday. Big takeaways included major gains on streaming transparency, staffing minimums, AI, script feels, and a model for residuals for streaming. “Made-for HBSVOD series and films that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release, or in the first 90 days in any subsequent exhibition year, get a bonus equal to 50% of the fixed domestic and foreign residual, with views calculated as hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by runtime,†the guild explained. Different rates apply for AVOD (ad revenue video on demand, à la Pluto TV et al.). Alongside streaming residuals (which by necessity demand streaming-viewership transparency), one of the biggest concessions was for writers’-room minimums. The only exceptions are auteur series like The White Lotus, but they must have only one writer from jump in order to qualify. So Yellowstone will stay Yellowstone-ing.
What’s Next?
SAG-AFTRA is still striking, with its video-games fight on the near horizon. WGA members won the right to picket alongside SAG members while they hash out a deal. Trades conjectured that this late-in-the-year deal means people may be working in Hollywood through the holidays, something almost unheard of by custom. The agreement will put late-night shows on the air sooner rather than later, but if SAG is still without a deal, shows will come back unbalanced. Hosts but no actors coming in to plug things? Who will do silly little games on-camera? Olivia Rodrigo? She’s just one person!
We Did It, Joe
Unrelated to the Hollywood strike but still a huge pro-labor deal, Joe Biden joined UAW on the picket line. Despite the indifference he displayed to his beloved choo-choos last year, Biden became the first president ever to stand on a picket line.
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