WGA & AMPTP Fail to Reach Agreement to Resume Negotiations, Prolonging Writers Strike

The writers strike isn’t ending anytime soon, it seems. The Writers Guild of America’s negotiating committee told the guild’s members on Friday, August 4, that it couldn’t reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to resume negotiations.

That afternoon, representatives from both sides of the labor dispute met to “discuss resuming negotiations for a new MBA [minimum basic agreement],” the WGA negotiating committee said in its message to members, per Deadline. But no agreement resulted from the meeting, the committee said, because the AMPTP said it needed to consult with its member studios before moving forward.

The committee also alleged that studios had leaked “rumors of the contents of the confidential meeting” to the press, despite the AMPTP “emphasizing the need for a press blackout.”

And so the committee offered details about Friday’s meeting, telling WGA members that the AMPTP was willing to “increase their offer on a few writer-specific TV minimums” and to “talk about AI” but not willing to discuss issues like success-based residuals and the preservation of writers’ rooms.

The committee also assured members that it doesn’t intend to leave any member behind or to agree to incremental gains to end the strike, which has now entered its fourth month.

Leah Williams/TV Insider

“Writers … have marched together for 94 days now,” the WGA said in a statement to members on Thursday, per Deadline. “We have struck to make writing a viable profession for all of us, now and in the future. We have not come all this way, and sacrificed this much, to half-save ourselves. Therefore, we challenge the studios and AMPTP to come to the meeting they called for this 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.”

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In response, the AMPTP said that it was looking to the WGA to be a “willing bargaining partner” at Friday’s meeting. “The WGA Bargaining Committee’s rhetoric is unfortunate,” the AMPTP added in its statement. “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.”

Both Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom have offered to pitch in to help the two sides come to an agreement, Deadline reported separately.

“It is critical that this gets resolved immediately so that Los Angeles gets back on track,” Bass said on Friday, “and I stand ready to personally engage with all the stakeholders in any way possible to help get this done.”