Yahoo Finance Hollywood studios publish proposal to striking writers as union slams deal
Hollywood's biggest studios have made an offer to striking Hollywood writers public for the first time.
Late Tuesday, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which bargains on behalf of studios including Warner Bros. (WBD), Disney (DIS), Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), and NBCUniversal (CMCSA), released the terms of its proposal, which the Writers Guild of America (WGA) denied in a face-to-face meeting with studio executives earlier that day.
By releasing the details of the counterproposal, the AMPTP is hoping the package will sway members and encourage the guild to accept the deal.
According to the AMPTP, the contract is "a comprehensive package which addresses all of the issues the Guild has identified as its highest priorities," including higher compensation, increases to streaming residuals, transparency around viewership data, a guaranteed minimum length of employment, and further protections surrounding the use of artificial intelligence.
The proposed wage increase, a compounded 13% jump over the three-year contract, would be the highest increase for the WGA in 35 years, the studios said. Streaming residuals would climb nearly 22% to $87,546 per episode for 3 exhibition years, up from the prior $72,067.
The WGA slammed the meet-up in an email to members late Tuesday, lamenting the proposal didn't come close to satisfying the writers' demands.
"This wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not twenty minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals," the WGA wrote, adding the proposal's "limitations and loopholes and omissions failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place."
"Our priority is to end the strike so that valued members of the creative community can return to what they do best and to end the hardships that so many people and businesses that service the industry are experiencing," wrote AMPTP president Carol Lombardini.
Studio executives including Disney CEO Bob Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal Studio Group chair Donna Langley attended Tuesday's meeting.
The two sides restarted negotiations on Aug. 11 after more than 100 days of no talks. The writers' strike is currently in its 113th day as experts say the cost to the economy could amount to $4 billion.
The WGA will continue its picketing on Wednesday.
SAG-AFTRA — the union that represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, recording artists, and other media professionals around the world — also remains firmly on the picket lines after joining striking writers in mid-July.
Scott Purdy, KPMG's US national media leader, told Yahoo Finance the strikes could likely last "two to three times" the prior 2007-2008 strike, which lasted for 100 days. That means a work stoppage could run well into 2024.
"I really think there's too much pain to miss an entire other season," Purdy said. "Right now it's a lose-lose situation."
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
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