You may have heard rumors that the strike by the Writers Guild of America might be edging towards resolution because the big media companies had made "ground breaking" proposals. Nonsense. Here’s the real story.

  The presidents of Writers Guild of America West and East released a message to its members about the real status of the negotiations. Here is most of it:

Among the rumors was the assertion that the AMPTP had a groundbreaking proposal that would make this negotiation a "done deal." In fact, for the first three days of this week, the companies presented in essence their November 4 package with not an iota of movement on any of the issues that matter to writers.

Thursday morning, the first new proposal was finally presented to us. It dealt only with streaming and made-for-Internet jurisdiction, and it amounts to a massive rollback.

For streaming television episodes, the companies proposed a residual structure of a single fixed payment of less than $250 for a year’s reuse of an hour-long program (compared to over $20,000 payable for a network rerun). For theatrical product they are offering no residuals whatsoever for streaming.

For made-for-Internet material, they offered minimums that would allow a studio to produce up to a 15-minute episode of network-derived web content for a script fee of $1300. They continued to refuse to grant jurisdiction over original content for the Internet.

In their new proposal, they made absolutely no move on the download formula (which they propose to pay at the DVD rate), and continue to assert that they can deem any reuse "promotional," and pay no residual (even if they replay the entire film or TV episode and even if they make money).

The AMPTP says it will have additional proposals to make but, as of Thursday evening, they have not been presented to us. We are scheduled to meet with them again on Tuesday.

In the meantime, we felt it was essential to update you accurately on where negotiations stand. On Wednesday we presented a comprehensive economic justification for our proposals. Our entire package would cost this industry $151 million over three years. That’s a little over a 3% increase in writer earnings each year, while company revenues are projected to grow at a rate of 10%. We are falling behind.

For Sony, this entire deal would cost $1.68 million per year. For Disney $6.25 million. Paramount and CBS would each pay about $4.66 million, Warner about $11.2 million, Fox $6.04 million, and NBC/Universal $7.44 million. MGM would pay $320,000 and the entire universe of remaining companies would assume the remainder of about $8.3 million per year. As we’ve stated repeatedly, our proposals are more than reasonable and the companies have no excuse for denying it.

The AMPTP’s intractability is dispiriting news but it must also be motivating. Any movement on the part of these multinational conglomerates has been the result of the collective action of our membership, with the support of SAG, other unions, supportive politicians, and the general public. We must fight on, returning to the lines on Monday in force to make it clear that we will not back down, that we will not accept a bad deal, and that we are all in this together.

In Solidarity,

Michael Winship

President

Writers Guild of America, East

Patric M. Verrone

President

Writers Guild of America, West

  I suspect that the rumors about the "groundbreaking proposal" were floated by Big Media. It’s a common tactic on the part of management during a strike–put out the word that management is being generous and bold and, then, when there is no movement, try to blame the workers and, especially, the union. When the promise of a possible end to the strike evaporates, then, strikers not in the know might feel dispirited and the general public will, given the traditional media’s inability to cover strikes with a modicum of competence, begin to soften any possible support for strikers.

  Here’s why Big Media has to resort to such tactics: it is getting creamed. It has lost the public relations battle, with two-thirds of the public supporting the strikers. Writers all around the world are rallying to the WGA’s cause. And the strikers themselves have stayed solid, as this rally in New York City earlier this week shows.

  When you read what a fair deal would cost the industry–a total of $151 million over three years–it is appalling that Big Media keeps playing hardball.

  As I said in the beginning of this strike, this is about GREED. These are very rich companies paying their executives huge amounts of money. They simply want to squeeze every cent from the people who are struggling to make a decent, middle-class living–which is what the vast majority of WGA members are trying to do.

  Are you going to continue to stand with the strikers? Damn straight. Keep checking the websites of WGA east and west for picketing and other support information. And keep making calls to Big Media’s executives–I heard the calls were deluging the offices and driving them nuts.