Under the height of the Hollywood sun, the writers strike rages on.
According to the Writers Guild of America (WGA), they’ve been asking Hollywood’s studios for better compensation packages and streaming residuals for over 100 days. Meanwhile, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), an institution that represents these studios, has consistently shunned these requests.
Yet, on August 21, the AMPTP presented the WGA with a counteroffer. They offered WGA’s members a 5% wage increase in the first year of their contracts, 4% in the second year, and 3.5% in the third. This is the exact same deal that the Directors Guild of America scored earlier this year.
What’s more, the AMPTP offered to provide the WGA with more accurate streaming service numbers. However, they didn’t offer to boost WGA’s streaming residuals.
Carol Lombardini, the President of the AMPTP, believes that her organisation has offered up a fair deal.
In a rare statement, Lombardini said, “Our priority is to end the strike so that valued members of the creative community can return to what they do best and to end the hardships that so many people and businesses that service the industry are experiencing.”
“We have come to the table with an offer that meets the priority concerns the writers have expressed. We are deeply committed to ending the strike and are hopeful that the WGA will work toward the same resolution.”
When this counteroffer was first announced, a number of industry experts were wondering if it would move things forward. On August 23, the WGA answered such queries. They did so by sledging the AMPTP’s response.
Hollywood’s Writers Strike Response
Intentions: They mean a lot to some folks. In the WGA’s negotiation statement, they claimed that the AMPTP had duplicitous intentions during their latest talk.
On August 23, the WGA wrote, “This week, we received an invitation to meet with Bob Iger, Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos, David Zaslav, and Carol Lombardini… We accepted that invitation and, in good faith, met tonight, in hopes that the companies were serious about getting the industry back to work.”
“Instead, on the 113th day of the strike, and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side, we were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was. We explained all the ways in which their counter’s limitations and loopholes and omissions failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place.”
The WGA then alleged that the AMPTP didn’t care about these concerns. They claimed that the AMPTP had no intention of updating their offer.
“This wasn’t a meeting to make a deal,” said the WGA. “This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals. “
“This was the companies’ plan from the beginning: Not to bargain, but to jam us. It is their only strategy: To bet that we will turn on each other.”
At the end of this statement, the WGA declared that its members would continue to stand on the picket line. So, under the height of the Hollywood sun, the writers strike rages on.
Want more entertainment news? Click here to read all our content, and go through the stories below:
- Where Are All the Great Union Films?
- Hollywood on Pause — The SAG Strike Explained
- The 2007 Writers Strike Changed Everything. Will the 2023 One Do the Same?
- The Writers Strike Is Now Over 100 Days Old — Here’s Where Everyone Stands
- The 75th Emmys Have Been Pushed Back Into the Ether — Here’s Why
Read more stories from The Latch and subscribe to our email newsletter.
