Dispatches From The Picket Lines: Scribes Celebrate New Deal While Showing Solidarity With SAG-AFTRA

Anthony D'Alessandro
·2 min read

This is Day 76 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The morning after the WGA strike was called to an end, the SAG-AFTRA picket lines thinned out at Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, with significantly fewer stars, however, a handful of scribes continued to turnout for their thespian brethren.

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Elated about the WGA strike’s end, For All Mankind writer Bradley Thompson, beamed at the Disney gates, “About freakin’ time!”

With a new scribe deal that contains big leaps in AI guardrails, residuals and data transparency for writers, Station 19 and Cruel Summer co-EP Anupam Nigham told Deadline, “It feels good that we got them to come up from $86M to $233M [annually] over three years.”

With movement made on the writers room minimum staffing front, the new deal will see that by Dec. 1, development rooms, otherwise known as pre-greenlight rooms, and regular writers rooms for television and HBSVOD series will have requirements regarding the minimum number of writers who must be hired and the duration of their employment.

New Amsterdam scribe Y. Shrieen Razack celebrated, “I’m most excited about staff writers getting script fees; it’s been long overdue for them, because they have been struggling for a long time.”

However, with fewer mobs at both studios, and SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree Ireland, a daily ambassador at pickets, out of town on business, there’s an anticipation from actors that they’re in the final stretch of their walkout given the WGA’s recent success. Another strike captain at Warners encouraged the group as today ended to continue to show up in numbers for the daily two-hour picket, and mentioned that Universal’s picket area will be re-opened soon. Among notable appearances today, word was that Twilight actor Peter Facinelli was picketing at Warner Bros. Discovery, while Mad Men creator Matt Weiner put in an appearance at Netflix.

Gary Mosher, a SAG-AFTRA strike captain at Warner Bros. Discovery, and star of The Price of Air said, “My spirits have been lifted up because of [the WGA deal], and now [the AMPTP] can concentrate on the actors.”

Deadline told you yesterday that SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP are expected to meet by the end of next week. Crabtree Ireland has said in interviews since the strike began in mid-July that it’s been crickets from the AMPTP.

Mosher, speaking about the WGA and studios’ talks and how that might impact SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations, added, “I’m hopeful because even though it took five days of negotiating, it did not break down for the writers. The fact that they stayed in the room for five days to negotiate is always a good sign. It means both signs are willing to give a little bit.”

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