Writers Strike

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is the association that conducts all the negotiations across all the industry-wide guild and union contracts. In the particular year of 2007 when it had come to the negotiating time of year the Writers Guild felt it was time to fight for change this time around. When home video was just starting out the studios asked the writers to take an 80% cut on their pay of videocassettes in order to expand the industry.

This was done with the understanding that once home video was a healthy market the studios would give back what they had given up. With sales soaring with the selling of DVD’s and the use of digital downloading the writers pay has yet to be changed from their pay cut. Dave McNary of Variety Magazine stated that “the Writers Guild wants studios and networks to take a serious look at the Guilds proposals – which seek a doubling of DVD residuals, spelling out terms of new media work and broadening WGA jurisdiction over new media, reality and animation.

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Attempts at a negotiation to avoid a walkout failed as the Guild announced they would start their strike on November 5, 2007. The Writers guild had a solid reason behind their strike. Patric Verrone, President of the Writers Guild of America stated, “What we must have is a contract that gives us the ability to keep up with the financial success of this ever-expanding global industry. ” In response to the Writers Guild’s DVD proposal the Alliance of Motion Picture Television Producers tayed with the fact that the studios’ DVD income was needed to pay for the rising costs of production and marketing.

The AMPTP took a solid stance on their approach to the negation. AMPTP spokesman Jesse Hiestand shared that “the AMPTP may have different companies with different assets in different businesses, but they are all unified in one common goal – to reach an agreement with writers that positions everyone in our industry for success in a rapidly changing marketplace. Although the AMPTP was after mutual benefit things always didn’t go that way.

One of the major issues that happened throughout the writers strike was the fact that negotiations between the two parties would fall through. One particular issue that broke up the negotiation was the issue of payment for content broadcast free or bought over the Internet. Finally after 100 days ups and downs the two parties came to an agreement. The deal they came to put in effect a scale of royalty payments for writers whose work is sold over the internet. Over the 100 days the writers strike lasted, there are several things that could have been handled better.

One of the greatest things is this childish behavior reported by Multichannel News Reports stating “Representatives for the writers guild and the studio alliance are blaming each other for the lack of negotiations. ” They could of avoided this issue and possibly could have had an agreement before the strike if they approached the negotiation by separating the people from the problem and working together towards mutual benefit. The greatest thing that went well in this negotiation is the positive outcome.

Writers Guild President Patric Verrone said, “this was not a strike we wanted, but one we had to conduct in order to win jurisdiction and establish appropriate residuals for writing in new media and over the internet. Rather than being shut out of the future content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as TV migrates to the internet and platforms for new media are developed. Those advances now give us a foothold in the digital age. ” The outcome that came from the negotiations between the two parties sets them off to a positive co-existence in the future.