Writers Guild of America rejects Hollywood studios' latest deal

The Writers Guild of America has rejected Hollywood CEOs' latest proposal just hours after studios and streamers made their "comprehensive package" public.

Earlier this week, an email from studio bosses was sent to the Guild with a view to terminate the strikes. However, the deal was rejected after members felt it was a ploy to get them to "cave".

Read the full email sent to members on Monday below:

DEAR MEMBERS,

After 102 days of being on strike and of AMPTP silence, the companies began to bargain with us on August 11th, presenting us for the first time with a counteroffer.  

We responded to their counter at the beginning of last week and engaged in further discussions throughout the week. 

On Monday of this week, we received an invitation to meet with Bob Iger, Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos, David Zaslav, and Carol Lombardini. It was accompanied by a message that it was past time to end this strike and that the companies were finally ready to bargain a deal. 

We accepted that invitation and, in good faith, met tonight, in hopes that the companies were serious about getting the industry back to work.

Instead, on the 113th day of the strike – and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side – we were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was. 

We explained all the ways in which their counter’s limitations and loopholes and omissions failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place. We told them that a strike has a price, and that price is an answer to all – and not just some – of the problems they have created in the business. 

But this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals. 

This was the companies’ plan from the beginning – not to bargain, but to jam us. It is their only strategy – to bet that we will turn on each other. 

Tomorrow we will send a more detailed description of the state of the negotiations. And we will see you all out on the picket lines so that the companies continue to see what labor power looks like.

On May 2, film and TV screenwriters went on strike following a dispute over pay in the streaming age.

Negotiations between studios and the writers, which began in March, failed to reach a new contract before the writers' current deal expired.

The board of directors for the WGA, which includes both a West and an East branch, voted unanimously to call for a strike.