Members of the Writers Guild of America have approved a slate of contract priorities in upcoming labor negotiations with studios and streamers that includes shoring up the union’s health plan, expanding AI protections and improving compensation.
More than 97 percent of participating union members voted to approve the bargaining slate ahead of negotiations starting with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on March 16, the union said on Friday.
The pattern of demands released on Friday depicts a labor group that is focused on increasing contributions to its benefits plans and increasing the maximum amount that employers can pay into the plans. As The Hollywood Reporter has previously reported, the WGA’s health fund cumulatively lost $122 million in 2023 and 2024, according to tax returns, as a decline in Hollywood work and general health care inflation took their tolls.
Though the pattern of demands was light on details — the union is still keeping its specific proposals close to the vest for now — AI will be another point of discussion. Though the protections the WGA enshrined in its contract in 2023 were generally considered strong, the union notes that it wants to expand these as the technology develops.
And like all unions, the WGA is intent on boosting compensation to its members. The pattern of demands says the union will be attempting to increase minimum compensation rates, raising minimums for “page one” rewrites, raising residuals for reuse in streaming and focused on pay rates for writers in post-production as well as comedy/variety, quiz and audience writers.
The labor group will also have a set of demands relating to common industry practices. The union has long railed against the “free work” required of writers and will be attempting to squash the issue in negotiations again this year. The WGA wants to expand on a breakthrough it made in its 2023 negotiations when it landed a second “step,” or point of payment, for screenwriters. Finally, it also wants to bolster guardrails around if/come deals, screen roundtables and employment on TV series.
The union previously went over these objectives with members at meetings at the Sheraton Universal in L.A. on Feb. 11 and at the DC 37 office in New York on Feb. 17. Two more member meetings to discuss these key items were scheduled but were then canceled once the guild’s own West Coast staff members went on strike.
This year the WGA is following the performers’ union SAG-AFTRA in its negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios and streamers in labor negotiations. SAG-AFTRA began its negotiations on Feb. 9 and will continue them through next week, it announced Friday.
This will be the first time that the WGA has sat down at the bargaining table with major companies — including Netflix, Warner Bros., Universal and Paramount, among others — since it waged a 148-day strike over issues including compensation in the streaming age and generative AI in 2023.
Since then, the industry has undergone a painful contraction that has squeezed employment at all levels of the business. In 2024, one year after the WGA’s strike, writer employment was down 9.4 percent from one year previously (the year of the strike, which de facto restricts employment) and 24.3 percent below 2022, according to the guild’s annual financial report.
The union’s negotiations will be led by chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman, who will be flanked by negotiating committee co-chairs John August and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. The AMPTP will be piloted by new president Gregory Hessinger, who succeeded longtime head Carol Lombardini in 2025.
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