Hollywood writers strike: What to know as the WGA heads to the picket line

Hollywood writers are officially on strike.



About 11,500 TV and film writers unionized through the Writers Guild of America are heading to the picket line after the WGA’s contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a trade association that represents more than 350 Hollywood film- and TV-production companies, expired on Monday without a new deal in place.



The Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America West and the Council of the Writers Guild of America East, voted unanimously to call a strike, which went into effect 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, May 2. The move comes after six weeks of negotiating with entertainment companies including Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Paramount, under the AMPTP.



Why are Hollywood writers striking?



Hollywood writers have seen their pay shrink in recent years, with more writers than ever earning contract minimums, and with streaming companies decimating residual pay structures. Writers also note that “mini rooms” now dominate, in which writing rooms have shrunk in size from what once was 10 or even 20 writers to now just the show creator and “two or three people.”



The Guild has been negotiating for higher minimums, standard residual terms, and for studios to “address the abuses of mini-rooms,” among other asks. Demands also include applying contract minimums to comedy-variety programs made for “new media,” which covers content written for the internet or distributed through new technology like streaming; those writers are currently not covered under such minimum pay guarantees.



“Over the course of the negotiation, we explained how the companies’ business practices have slashed our compensation and residuals and undermined our working conditions,” the Guild’s negotiating committee said in a statement. While the trade association representing studios said in a statement that it offered “generous increases in compensation for writers” during negotiations, the Guild says its responses to writers’ proposals has been “wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing.”



Writers have stressed the high stakes of these proposals throughout the negotiating process. “A phrase I see that keeps going around with writers on Twitter, and in member meetings with the Guild, is that this particular negotiation feels like it’s existential,” one writer, Alex Blagg, who has worked on shows including Workaholics and @midnight, previously told Fast Company. “And that our entire career, our way of life, the traditional ways in which writers have been able to create a livelihood for themselves, feels like it’s crumbling—and it feels like it’s escalating quickly.”



How will a writers’ strike play out?



The last Hollywood writers strike was in 2007, when about 12,000 Guild members took to the picket lines for 100 days. That strike was “massively disruptive,” costing California an estimated loss of 37,700 jobs and $2.1 billion in economic output.



The stakes during that strike were high as well, with the Guild fighting for DVD residuals and writers’ involvement in the “new media” of that era. There’s no telling how long writers will strike now, but though television may look a little different in the streaming age, there are sure to be immediate disruptions. Late-night shows will be affected first, going dark on Tuesday night, as writers typically work on those the day or week of. Network shows that air weekly will also be hit, although that’s unlikely to be noticed for at least a few weeks.



How streaming companies as a whole will be affected is the million dollar question. Companies like Netflix have been investing in international shows and do have a backlog of content. However, Laura Blum-Smith, director of Research and Public Policy at WGA West, previously told Fast Company that “in 2007 people didn’t necessarily cancel their cable bundles . . . To contrast with now, streaming services are the key growth businesses, and they’re much more vulnerable to churn.” That viewers could cancel these services more easily could possibly add more pressure to the negotiations.



Hollywood writers will be picketing at locations in both New York City and California, representing the East and West branches of the union. (Fast Company’s editorial newsroom is unionized through the Writers Guild of America East but is not involved in the strike.) Those picket lines will be outside major studios’ headquarters, including Peacock, Netflix, Amazon, CBS, Disney, Fox, Paramount, and more.