Hollywood writers hear proposed studios deal

Hollywood writers have had first look at details of a tentative agreement with studios that could put the strike-crippled entertainment industry back to work, as the union’s East Coast president said he backed the offer.

A summary of the proposed deal crafted this week was posted on the Writers Guild of America’s website hours before members attended meetings in New York and Los Angeles yesterday.

Compensation for projects delivered via digital media was the central issue in the three-month-old walkout, which idled thousands of workers, disrupted the TV season and moviemaking and took the shine off Hollywood’s awards season.

“I believe it is a good deal. I am going to be recommending this deal to our membership,” Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East, said before the New York meeting at a Times Square hotel.

Mr Winship said later that he was encouraged by the membership’s response.

“We had a very lively discussion. I’m happy with what happened. … At the moment, I feel strongly it (the proposed deal) has a strong chance of going through,” he said.

Writers leaving the two-hour-plus New York meeting characterised the reaction as generally positive and said there was cautious optimism that the end of the strike – the guild’s first in 20 years – could be near.

“There’s a general feeling of tremendous success. I was delighted,” said TV writer John Simmons, who estimated that about 500 writers were on hand.

“We agreed that this looks pretty good. … It bodes well for the future.”

He added that there are “always some people who will dissent” and that the complex deal required further scrutiny.

Carmen Culver, a film and TV writer, praised the guild “for hanging tough”.

“It’s a great day for the labour movement. We have suffered a lot of privation in order to achieve what we’ve achieved,” she said.

Michael Moore, the Bowling For Columbine Oscar-winning documentary film-maker and a nominee this year for his health-care film Sicko, attended the New York meeting.

“It’s a historic moment for labour in this country,” Moore said.

If guild members on both coasts react favourably to the proposed deal, the guild’s board could vote today to lift the strike order and the industry could be up and running by tomorrow.

This month’s Oscars ceremony, which has been under the cloud of a union and actors boycott, also would be a winner.

Today’s Grammy Awards ceremony has a picket-free pass from the union.

Mr Winship warned that it was not a “done deal” until the contract was ratified by members. He also said that several steps must be taken before the West guild’s board and East guild’s council decided to lift the strike order.

“It conceivably could be Monday, but there are several different alternative ways that the board and council could determine how this should be dealt with,” Mr Winship said.

An outline of the three-year deal was reached in recent talks between media executives and the guild, with lawyers then drafting the contract language that was concluded yesterday.

According to the guild’s summary, the deal provides union jurisdiction over projects created for the internet based on certain guidelines, sets compensation for streamed, ad-supported programmes and increases residuals for downloaded movies and TV programmes.

The writers’ deal is similar to one reached last month by the Directors Guild of America, including a provision that compensation for ad-supported streaming does not kick in until after a window of between 17 to 24 days deemed “promotional” by the studios.

Writers would get a maximum £631 flat fee for streamed programmes in the deal’s first two years and then get percentage of a distributor’s gross in year three - the last point an improvement on the directors deal, which remains at the flat payment rate.

“Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success,” guild leaders Winship and Patric Verrone, head of the Writers Guild of America, West, said in an emailed message to members.

Together, the guilds represent 12,000 writers, with about 10,000 of those involved in the strike that began November 5 and has cost the Los Angeles area economy alone an estimated £530m (€711m) or more. Studios are represented by Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

One observer said the guild gained ground in the deal but not as much as it wanted.

“It’s a mixed deal but far better than the writers would have been able to get three months ago. The strike was a qualified success,” said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment lawyer with the TroyGould firm and a former associate counsel for the writers guild.

The walkout “paved the way for the directors to get a better deal than they would otherwise have gotten. That in turn became the foundation for further improvements the writers achieved,” Mr Handel said.