Last week, WGA negotiators sent a message to union members suggesting they could more easily reach new contracts with individual Hollywood studios if they broke ranks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which leads labor talks for the industry.
WGA negotiators said they have had conversations with individual executives from traditional studios who have expressed a willingness to negotiate terms and even meet some union demands. But since the AMPTP also represents streamers, which are competitors to studios, and negotiates on behalf of all the companies together, there has been no interest by the alliance to budge on some union proposals.
“Every member company of the AMPTP wants a fair deal for writers and actors and an end to the strikes, which are affecting not only our writer and actor colleagues, but also thousands of others across the industry. That is why the AMPTP has repeatedly put forward offers that address major priorities of the WGA, including a last round of offers on Aug. 17th and 18th.''
The offer also included a guarantee of minimum writing staff size for television, “but the loopholes, limitations and omissions in their modest proposal ... make them effectively toothless,” according to the union. The studios also agreed to ``allow six WGA staff to study limited streaming viewership data for the next three years,'' but a viewership-based compensation package would have to wait until the next contract negotiations in three years, according to the union.
The WGA had sought a 6% increase to minimums and residual bases in the first year, followed by 5% increases in the second and third years, according to the Los Angeles Times.