0/5

Official: WGA Strike over!


The American writers’ strike has officially ended.

The Writers Guild of America announced just before 7 p.m. that members voted to lift the strike order with a 92.5% endorsement. WGA West president Patric Verrone, the most visible figure during the 14-week strike, made the announcement.

“The strike is over,” he said. “Our membership has voted, and writers can go back to work. This was not a strike we wanted, but one we had to conduct in order to win jurisdiction and establish appropriate residuals for writing in new media and on the Internet. Those advances now give us a foothold in the digital age. Rather than being shut out of the future of content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as TV migrates to the Internet and platforms for new media are developed.”

The official tally showed 3,492 voting yes and 283 voting no.

The announcement capped over three months of walking, talking, picketing, chanting, and strategizing from both sides as the long and winding road of the strike came to an end at a ballot box in Beverly Hills.

The vote on lifting the strike concluded a mere three days after the WGA cinched its contract agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. The strike vote was held over a 48-hour frame, with members able to vote in person at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills and Gotham’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, or via fax.

The seven CEOs who head the AMPTP issued a statement minutes after the WGA announced, opening with, “This is a day of relief and optimism for everyone in the entertainment industry.”

“We can now all get back to work, with the assurance that we have concluded two groundbreaking labor agreements – with our directors and our writers — that establish a partnership through which our business can grow and prosper in the new digital age,” the moguls said. “The strike has been extraordinarily difficult for all of us, but the hardest hit of all have been the many thousands of businesses, workers and families that are economically dependent on our industry. We hope now to focus our collective efforts on what this industry does best – writers, directors, actors, production crews, and entertainment companies working together to deliver great content to our worldwide audiences.”

WGA East Michael Winship said, “We’re receiving a percentage of the distributor’s gross, which is very real money, as opposed to what people refer to as creative or Hollywood accounting.”

The ratification process of the contract itself will begin later with week via a mail-in-ballot. The vote will be tallied at membership meetings on Feb. 25, with the expected ratification being finalized on Feb. 26.

Source: Variety

5 Responses

Leave a Reply