WGA Slams Studios’ Latest Offer & Meeting As Attempt To Make Guild “Cave”; “Not To Bargain, But To Jam Us”

Dominic Patten
·4 min read
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Just hours after the studios and streamers made public their latest “comprehensive package” toward a deal with the striking WGA, the guild has responded – and it seems the AMPTP and top CEOs might have overplayed their hand strategically.

In fact, 113 days into the writers strike, talks look to have broken down altogether — again.

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“On Monday of this week, we received an invitation to meet with Bob Iger, Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos, David Zaslav and Carol Lombardini,” the WGA Negotiating Committee said in an email about tonight’s meeting just sent out to members (see it in full below). “It was accompanied by a message that it was past time to end this strike and that the companies were finally ready to bargain a deal. We accepted that invitation and, in good faith, met tonight, in hopes that the companies were serious about getting the industry back to work.”

At this point in its succinct note to members, the WGA unveils a very different POV on what went down with Iger, Sarandos and the gang and the August 11 proposal they put forth — at least very different from the hyperbole the AMPTP put out there earlier Tuesday amid the press blackout. Besides taking a swipe at the CEOs for dramatically misreading the room, the guild’s perspective reads much more that the AMPTP was trying to hype the whole thing and score some much-needed PR points tonight rather than seeking an end to Hollywood’s long-running production shutdown and labor strife.

“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,” the Negotiating Committee led by Ellen Stutzman, David Goodman and Chris Keyser said of the off-site sit-down with the CEOs and AMPTP chief. “But this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. 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.”

Openly deriding the studios’ public relations move Tuesday night, the WGA added: “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.”

Calling out the AMPTP’s August 11 proposal for its “limitations and loopholes and omissions,” the WGA isn’t interested in what it seems to say are the studios and streamers disingenuous offers of increased residuals, AI controls, writers room standards and transparency in metrics from the streamers — offers the AMPTP claim  “addresses all of the issues the Guild has identified as its highest priorities.”

Hollywood’s steaming summer of strikes looks ever farther from over than just a few hours ago — and the end to this figurative and literal war of words might be nowhere in sight.

Here is the full WGA email to its membership:

DEAR MEMBERS,

After 102 days of being on strike and of AMPTP silence, the companies began to bargain with us on August 11th, presenting us for the first time with a counteroffer.  

We responded to their counter at the beginning of last week and engaged in further discussions throughout the week. 

On Monday of this week, we received an invitation to meet with Bob Iger, Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos, David Zaslav, and Carol Lombardini. It was accompanied by a message that it was past time to end this strike and that the companies were finally ready to bargain a deal. 

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. We told them that a strike has a price, and that price is an answer to all – and not just some – of the problems they have created in the business. 

But this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. 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. 

Tomorrow we will send a more detailed description of the state of the negotiations. And we will see you all out on the picket lines so that the companies continue to see what labor power looks like.

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