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US Writers to meet with Studios over strike, Aussie crews show support.

Talks between US studios and striking writers to resume for the first time in 3 months.

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Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America are headed back to the negotiating table in the first known talks since the nearly 100-day strike brought production of most television shows and movies to a halt.

The meeting, sought by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is scheduled for Friday. It marks the first formal communication between the AMPTP and the WGA since negotiations broke down on May 1.

But there is -at best- cautious optimism about whether it may lead to the end of the strike.

“It’s a meeting to discuss meeting,” said John Rogers, a member of the WGA negotiating committee told Variety. “We’re trying to urge members to remember that this is a great first step, but not to get your hopes up too much.”

“We don’t know why they’re bringing us back to the table,” said Alex Eldridge, a WGA member picketing at Paramount. “Is it to address the concerns that the guild has sufficiently? Or is it to try to put a Bandaid on the bullet hole? We just don’t know.”

But the meeting also does not change anything thus far for the SAG-AFTRA strike, which is now three weeks underway.

“We are ready, willing and able to return to the table at any time,” said a statement from Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator. “We have not heard from the AMPTP since July 12 when they told us they would not be willing to continue talks for quite some [time]. The only way a strike comes to an end is through the parties talking and we urge them to return to the table so that we can get the industry back to work as soon as possible.”

A spokesman for AMPTP could not provide any information about when talks might resume with the actors.

“We remain committed to finding a path to mutually beneficial deals with both unions,” said a statement from the management group.

Meanwhile Australian crews remainin solidarity with US comrades.

Source: CNN, Variety

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  2. Like the actors strike this writers strike is going to do wonders for TV and movie entertainment (not), based on what I have read the studios can be somewhat autocratic about who is in control of the screenplay writing, with some producers preferring to have workshop meetings and whiteboards to sort out the creative criteria of forthcoming new content and its characters, and this is not always the creative decision of the employed writer(s) to decide, but a studio edict from the producer(s) or showrunner(s). This is why I suspect that these protests are also about preserving a few writer reputations, as even well known scriptwriters can end up waiting a long time between studio commissions if they don’t do what they are told.

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