Writers Guild Sets New Negotiations Session With Studios, Streamers for Aug. 11

Katie Kilkenny and Lesley Goldberg
·3 min read
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After a 101-day hiatus, the Writers Guild of America and Hollywood’s top studios and streamers have set a date to return to the negotiating table: Friday, Aug. 11.

The return to formal negotiations was announced Aug. 10, nearly a week after both sides met in an exploratory meeting about the talks between the two parties on Aug 4. It marks the first step in what may be a long road to the parties reaching a resolution and ending the writers strike.

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“Carol Lombardini has asked the WGA Negotiating Committee to meet with AMPTP negotiators on Friday,” the WGA said in an email to members Aug. 10. “We expect the AMPTP to provide responses to WGA proposals. Our committee returns to the bargaining table ready to make a fair deal, knowing the unified WGA membership stands behind us and buoyed by the ongoing support of our union allies. We will get back to you.”

The walk-up to this development was not without drama. Following the Aug. 4 meeting, the WGA informed members that the AMPTP was seeking to use the deal that the Directors Guild of America agreed to earlier this summer as a template for shared issues like pay increases and expressed a willingness to increase its offer on a few writer-specific TV minimums — but not such core writer issues as the minimum size of writers rooms or success-based residuals. (Read the WGA’s full update here.) The AMPTP declined to comment on the Aug. 4 meeting. Writers blasted the AMPTP’s Aug. 4 offer as “insulting and out-of-touch.”

While scribes initially had optimism for the Aug. 4 meeting, the lack of results at the time served as yet another rallying cry for writers. On Wednesday, the WGA marked the 100th day of its strike, which has now officially surpassed the length of the 2007 walkout. WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser, in an interview this week with THR, called the 100-day marker “an anniversary of shame for the AMPTP.”

After whispers of the previous meetup circulated for days, the WGA alerted its members last week that AMPTP president Lombardini had reached out to set a time to “to discuss negotiations.” The meeting was set for Aug. 4, but the union tamped down expectations by sending off a long memo to members on Aug. 3 warning them that entertainment companies might not be ready yet to make major concessions. “We challenge the studios and AMPTP to come to the meeting they called for [last] Friday with a new playbook: Be willing to make a fair deal and begin to repair the damage your strikes and your business practices have caused the workers in this industry,” the WGA’s 2023 negotiating committee wrote.

That missive prompted the AMPTP to send off a terse press statement of its own, describing the union’s rhetoric as “unfortunate.” The group added, “This strike has hurt thousands of people in this industry, and we take that very seriously. Our only playbook is getting people back to work.”

Now on its 101st day, the writers strike has contributed to what is essentially a shutdown of unionized, scripted production in the U.S. and, in some cases, abroad, affecting projects including Deadpool 3 and Gladiator 2. Meanwhile, as performers union SAG-AFTRA joined the picket lines July 14, production on major films and television series have also been delayed, from Marvel’s Blade to Netflix’s Stranger Things.

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