2023 Writers Guild of America strike

• 1. Introduction

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  At 1:00 p.m. PDT on the 2nd of May, 2023, the Writers Guild of America strike officially began. The union's 11,500 members had authorized the action weeks earlier, with 97.85% saying yes. Their collective bargaining agreement had expired the day before with no replacement in hand. What had driven writers who fuel Hollywood's biggest productions to walk off the job? And what would it cost everyone before they came back? Alongside a simultaneous SAG-AFTRA strike, the WGA walkout created the biggest disruption to American film and television since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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• 2. The Streaming Divide

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  Writers for The Problem with Jon Stewart, which aired on Apple TV+, had to negotiate their pay individually with the streaming company. Their counterparts on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which aired on CBS, were covered by the Minimum Basic Agreement. Both shows were comparable late-night programs; the gap in their writers' pay came down to how each show reached its audience. The MBA set minimum wages for television writers, but only for those working on broadcast television, not streaming. The WGA argued that streaming residuals had cut much of its members' average income compared to a decade earlier. The fall of what the industry called Peak TV added to the pressure: fewer series were being ordered, and more productions were canceled. Writers were hit first because they work in development and pre-production, the earliest stages in any production. Among the WGA's demands was one the AMPTP refused outright, offering no counterproposal in return. That was a requirement for separate pension and health care fund contributions for each member of any writing team.

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• 3. The AI Ultimatum

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  ChatGPT had become a public phenomenon just months before the WGA strike, and the union had been watching its implications closely. The WGA wanted strict limits on generative AI, naming tools like ChatGPT as a specific concern. Writers were willing to accept that their members might find their own uses for the technology. What they refused was any arrangement where studios could use AI to replace human writers or cut their pay. The union demanded that studios be barred from training AI on writers' materials and from creating digital recreations of their work. The WGA also sought a prohibition on using AI to reduce writers' roles or cut their compensation. Talks on the 11th of August produced some movement: the AMPTP indicated a willingness to make concessions on AI safeguards. But the WGA told its members that same day that studios "were not willing to engage" on success-based streaming residuals. On the 22nd of August, the AMPTP presented its own AI content proposal. The language that would eventually settle the AI question would not come until September, when negotiations reached a different level entirely.

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• 4. The Picket Lines

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  By the 10th of May, 2023, writers had already pledged $1.7 million to the Entertainment Community Fund to support members in financial hardship. Prominent donors included showrunners and producers J. J. Abrams, Greg Berlanti, Adam McKay, Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhimes, Michael Schur, and John Wells. SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher picketed alongside WGA members in May, and many actors publicly declared their support. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver launched a podcast called Strike Force Five to support their out-of-work staff. Picketing spread across dozens of locations, including AMC Networks, Amazon, HBO, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. On the 7th and the 8th of June, New York picketing paused due to dangerous air quality from Canadian wildfires, resuming the following day. On the 9th of June, Lionsgate line producer Ian Woolf accelerated his car toward writers picketing outside the BMF production headquarters. Writer Tom Smuts reported that Woolf drove at Gabriel Alejandro Garza and Brian Egeston, stopping just short of hitting them. Woolf later admitted to trying to scare the picketers, and Lionsgate suspended him. Teamsters Local 399 could not strike in solidarity due to an existing contract, but would not cross picket lines either. Their leader, Lindsay Dougherty, spoke at a WGA rally on the 3rd of May: "Every single truck that we know of has not crossed."

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• 5. The Studios' Calculation

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  On the 12th of July, 2023, Deadline Hollywood reported that the AMPTP had no plans to return to negotiations until October at the earliest. Studio executives who spoke anonymously described a deliberate strategy to wait out the writers. One executive spoke plainly: "The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses." The AMPTP distanced itself from those comments. When asked about WGA demands for staffing minimums and guaranteed employment terms, AMPTP president Carol Lombardini said that "writers are lucky to have term employment." A separate Deadline report described the AMPTP as pursuing a "divide and conquer" approach among different Hollywood unions. On the 30th of August, California State Treasurer Fiona Ma sent letters to seven major studios urging a return to talks. She described the strike as paralyzing Hollywood and reverberating across the state, affecting businesses, pension beneficiaries, and millions of Californians. On the 5th of September, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the strikes would reduce its 2023 earnings by $500 million. The following day, the company suspended deals with Mindy Kaling, J. J. Abrams, Greg Berlanti, and Bill Lawrence. On the 18th of September, it was announced that talks would resume two days later, with studio CEOs attending negotiations for the first time.

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• 6. The Deal

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  On the 24th of September, 2023, after four consecutive days of sessions, the WGA and the AMPTP reached a tentative agreement. David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery, Bob Iger of Disney, and Ted Sarandos of Netflix had attended those sessions. Donna Langley of NBCUniversal and Bob Bakish of Paramount also participated. Two days after the tentative deal, the union's leadership voted to end the strike. At 12:01 a.m. PDT on the 27th of September, the walkout officially ended. On the 9th of October, 99% of WGA members voted to ratify the new contract. The union's negotiating effort had been led by Ellen Stutzman, who took over as chief negotiator from David Young in February 2023. The 24-member negotiating committee was co-chaired by David A. Goodman and Chris Keyser and also included writers David Simon, David Shore, and James Schamus. The WGA secured higher minimum wages, improved final compensation, and better pension and health fund rates. The contract also raised residuals for both domestic and foreign streaming works and established new employment and staffing minimums for writing teams. The ripple effects of the stoppage stretched beyond writers' rooms into visual effects shops and prop making studios. Those industries had depended on productions that, for the duration of the strike, never got started.

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