These are the biggest wins in the WGA’s new employment contract

(disclosure: the edge The editorial staff also joins the Writers Guild of America East.)

The WGA made it abundantly clear from the jump that its members were willing to fight the fight of their lives in pursuit of a new minimum basic agreement — the formal guidelines that define how workers are compensated for their work — designed to better address the world’s tectonic shifts. Entertainment industry. But no matter how good the new deal you were hoping for, what the WGA has been able to achieve is truly monumental in a way that cannot be overstated, and will make the TV and film industry more equitable over the coming period. A few years.

Although WGA members have until October 9 to cast their votes to decide whether they want to ratify the proposed new contract, leadership from the boards of directors of both the WGAE(ast) and WGAW(est), as well as the union’s bargaining committee, voted unanimously. to recommend an “exceptional” deal, and it’s not hard to understand why.

The WGA’s new contract guarantees that “staff writers and Section 14 writers (story editors/executive story editors)” will see increases in their base weekly wages for the next three years — 5 percent in the first year, 4 percent in the second year, and 3.5 percent in the third. . Sixty days after the contract is ratified, writers and producers such as the series creator and other co-producers with writing responsibilities will receive a new minimum weekly rate of “up to a 9.5 percent bonus to story editor/executive story editor.” Rate.” When staff writers are individually responsible for writing specific episodes, they must now receive a script fee in addition to their basic weekly pay.

In addition to direct pay increases, the WGA has also secured more resources for television writers via minimum staffing requirements designed to reduce the emergence of “microrooms” in which very small (and generally underpaid) teams are assigned to write full-sized projects . Now, instead of AMPTP being able to keep writers’ rooms artificially small, their number will be determined by the length of a show’s season (except in cases similar to White lotus And Yellowstone (One person writes each episode.)

From now on, at least three writers must be assigned to shows of six episodes or fewer. If a season has between 7 and 12 episodes, five writers must be hired, and for shows with more than 13 episodes, that number increases to six. At all sizes, at least three of the writers in the screening room must also be writers and producers, and it will be interesting to see over the next few years what impact this specific rule will have on the pipeline that develops new hires who are just entering the industry.

Minimum staffing was one of the biggest changes pushed by the WGA during contract negotiations. But due to the requirements of the writer and producer, There was some legitimate concern New writers may still struggle to find opportunities outside of larger rooms where there is more space for them as well as more experienced staff at higher levels.

It is important to note that these are not necessarily minimums maximum, Which means performers should be able to push for more bodies at the start of the party. Although studios are almost guaranteed to respond to these types of requests, the new contract includes other benefits such as minimum writers’ room lengths designed to assist newcomers in their professional development.

Although the word “showrunner” is common in our vocabulary, it has never been an official role codified in the WGA and AMPTP contract, which is partly why some studios like Marvel have taken to downplaying the importance of the title when talking about their projects. . The new contract clearly defines showrunners as the lead writers and the people responsible for making hiring decisions regarding other writers on the project.

Part of a showrunner’s job is to connect with other writers in the early stages of a project before it’s officially greenlit for a debut or new season. Under the new contract, once at least three writers and producers, including the showrunner, join the gig before it’s officially given the green light, that development room is guaranteed at least 10 weeks of staffing.

After a bid gets the green light, “minimum staffing must be guaranteed for at least 20 weeks or for the duration of the post-green light room, whichever is shorter.” Also, while the total number of “weeks worked in the development room can add up to the guaranteed weeks in the writers’ room,” time that is explicitly paid for in development rooms cannot be added to the time they are paid full-time in writers’ rooms. .

By definition, these new rules ensure a certain level of job security that is crucial for professional development at all levels. The same goes for a contract mandate that stipulates that the showrunner, two writers and producers must be paid to work on set “for the lesser of 20 weeks of production or production duration.”

One of the more subtle points that WGA members emphasized during the strikes was how, in addition to literally putting writers in better positions to offer last-minute rewrites in the midst of production, how to be on set and able to do so See the process of how your writing is produced on an artistic level It is the key to professional growth. Now, writers are guaranteed to get the chance to see their work brought to life, and the contract also makes it so that those two off-screen spots don’t always have to go to the same people, meaning multiple employees can have that same opportunity.

Studios used to be able to choose at their own discretion whether to return writers for paid rewrites, commonly known as second steps, but that process is now required and comes with a fixed compensation rate. When a screenwriter is hired to draft a screenplay, they must be selected for a second step to obtain 200 percent of the minimum MBA degree, regardless of whether they write original or non-original screenplays. Streaming writers working on projects with budgets of $30 million or more will see their story and TV compensation jump to $100,000, as well as a 26 percent jump in remaining pay rates.

Under the contract, the studios will also be required to pay screenwriters in a timely manner. If a writer is hired on a deal that pays less than 200% of the minimum guaranteed rate for an MBA, they must be paid “50% of the starting fee.” Even if the writer doesn’t deliver the script nine weeks into the deal, studios must pay them another 25 percent of their fee, with the final 25 percent due upon final delivery of the script.

In the same way that paying people more money improves their working conditions, so does ensuring that employees get paid quickly because of how money is deposited in people’s bank accounts. This also shows that the studios are actually committed to giving workers what they deserve.

Forcing workers to wait on checks while companies take their sweet time paying bills is an all-too-common situation that – by design – is often difficult for individuals to rectify quickly. While this contract is clearly specific to the WGA, at a time when more and more workplaces are organizing, it wouldn’t be surprising to see other unions push for similar protections.

Larger residual payments and access to more data on how streaming shows actually perform have been some of the most contentious issues the AMPTP WGA has fought, and while studios probably won’t get into the business of radical transparency anytime soon, the union has scored some very important victories. Although audiences won’t be privy to the hard statistics on how streaming movies and TV shows perform on various streaming devices, AMPTP has agreed to share “the total number of hours of broadcast, domestically and internationally, of self-produced, high-budget shows.” Broadcast Programs” with the WGA.

Those numbers will be kept confidential, but the WGA will be able to share them with members in aggregate, and will use them to determine viewership-based bonuses as well as new residual rates for foreign broadcasts that the union says will reach 76 percent. A jump in payments over the next three years. Shows and movies intended for streaming that are watched by 20 percent or more of the platform’s domestic subscribers within the first 90 days of the project’s premiere will receive rewards “equal to 50 percent of the remaining domestic and foreign fixed” they already receive.

It’s not entirely clear yet how this will all play out because the new contract’s method for determining the remaining payments is tied to viewership metrics that vary from platform to platform. However, what we will likely see going forward is a sharp increase in promotion of upcoming releases of new projects with a focus on getting people to watch within windows which ultimately impacts the size of these rewards.

Regarding the use of AI tools, the WGA emphasized its desire to prevent technology from harming human writers. While the new contract does not prohibit the use of AI in MBA-covered work, it does place a number of restrictions designed to prioritize human labor in writing.

If writers hired by the studios wanted to, they would be free to “use artificial intelligence when performing writing services, if approved by the company and provided that the writer follows established company policies.” But studios can’t require hired writers to use AI tools, and must also disclose to their writers “if any materials submitted to the writer were AI-generated or incorporate AI-generated material.” The contract expressly prohibits the use of AI “to write or rewrite literary material” that could be considered the source material for a text, “which means that AI-generated material cannot be used to undermine the writer’s credit or separate rights.” “.

Unsurprisingly, AMPTP refuses to give up its ability to train learning models on scripts that studios already have. But the WGA reserved the right to “confirm that the exploitation of authors’ materials for AI training is prohibited under the MBA or other law,” suggesting that the organization intends to act as a judicial watchdog in the future. This requirement comes just days after California Senator Scott Wiener (D) proposed a bill aimed at regulating artificial intelligence at the state level. The bill would place a number of restrictions and transparency requirements on large language models and other types of “parametric” modeling systems that require a certain level of computational power.

If passed, the bill would also require the companies behind these AI tools to conduct rigorous testing to evaluate potential safety risks that must be disclosed to the state. We’re still a long way from California’s senators being able to vote the bill — the exact terms of which are still being worked out — into law. But it is very easy to imagine a situation in which these regulations become a vital part of the WGA’s plan to hold AMPTP accountable regarding Hollywood’s adoption of AI.

In order to qualify for health care benefits, WGA members must make a certain amount of money annually — a rule that has long made it more difficult for writing duos and teams that typically collect their fees as if they were one person. While these types of group fees will still technically be pro-rated, under the new contract, all writers will be documented as receiving full payment for the team — which will make it significantly easier for them to reach the minimum required to receive insurance.