Striking Writers Return To Work
After a strike that lasted longer than most thought it would, writers laid down their picket signs and once again picked up their keyboards, to the delight of television audiences everywhere:
More than 92 percent of the Writers Guild of America members who cast ballots Tuesday in Los Angeles and New York voted to end their work stoppage over residuals for writing in the digital age, including new media and the Internet. The new deal is for three years.
"The strike is over. Our membership has voted, and writers can go back to work," said Patric Verrone, president of the WGA's West chapter.
While the new deal does not give the writers everything that they had asked for, it is a better deal than what they had previously:
Verrone said the WGA achieved two of three goals through negotiations with the studios.
The first goal relates to writers' "jurisdiction" in new media, Verrone said, meaning that any content written by guild members specifically for new media, such as the Internet or cell phones, will be covered by their contract.
The second goal relates to reuse of content in new media, Verrone said.
The agreement bases payment for reuses on a distributor's gross formula for residuals, "so that when they get paid, we get paid," he said.
It is the "first time in our history that a new delivery system pays on a residual formula superior to the prior existing system," Verrone said.
The third goal, which Verrone said the guild did not achieve, was to shore up writers' shares of the revenue from animation and reality television.
"Giving up animation and reality was a heartbreaking thing for me personally," he said. "But it was more important that we make a deal that benefited the membership, the town as a whole, that got people back to work and that solved the biggest problems in new media."
Well, maybe next time.
The new deal also means that workers who were affected by the strike, but not directly involved in it, can go back to work as well...people like makeup artists, hairdressers, set designers, camera operators, and the person who operates the Teleprompter. It was my belief that the studios held out so long because they believed that by creating collateral damage (the non-striking workers affected by the strike), writers would feel pressured to cave in and go back to work. It does seem to have worked somewhat, as the strike drug on for months, workers were fired or laid off, and the WGA eventually did have to concede on one of their points.
This also means that the Oscars can now go on as planned, with scripted banter and A-list stars. Had the strike continued, many stars said they would not cross the picket lines out of solidarity, and the planners would be forced to rely on either improvised jokes or letting Jon Stewart write his own material for the hours-long telecast. And actors who have waited a lifetime for an award can now rest assured that the show will go on.
Of course, some late-night shows went back on the air before the end of the strike, so that the jobs of their crews could be salvaged (a precedent set by none other than the late, great Johnny Carson during the 1988 writer's strike), and some shows negotiated deals with their writers independent of the greater strike.
But don't set up your Tivos just yet...it will take about four weeks to get new episodes of comedies back on the air, and six to eight weeks to get drama episodes aired.
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