After nearly 150 days on strike, the WGA has unanimously voted toapprove a new contractthat will provide protections and adequate compensation for their work for the next few years. The yearly increases in pay, protections against the use of AI, and the redefined residual payments from streaming services will enable writers the stability and security that a full-time career should provide. There are so many benefits for writers of films and television moving forward, and all of that will serve viewers in the long run, too.
When writers aren’t stressing about where their next meal is coming fromor if they can afford rent, they’re much more capable of putting their full attention into their writing, giving viewers higher-quality stories to watch. Viewers will also be rescued from watching anything written solely by AI which can churn out a script that resembles a middle school book report compared to a real writer’s work, and no one wants to see shows of that low quality. The union succeeded in achieving many of the other contract demands they presented in negotiations. While the new contract will change writers' lives dramatically for the better, there are a myriad of ways that viewers will benefit from this deal as well.
The Advantages of Paying Writers What They’re Worth
The profession of writing has been struggling for a long time. With many of these jobs working behind the scenes, there isn’t nearly as much recognition given to screenwriters as there used to be decades ago. The lack of recognition and the stagnant wages have made it nearly impossible to keep a career in screenwriting.Writers often have to supplement their incomeby taking freelance writing projects or getting a second job in customer service. With the new contract, writers will be given a 5% increase this year, with yearly increases coming after that until 2026 when they’ll negotiate a new contract. The new pay scale that unions negotiated will go a long way to keep writers focused on their work rather than worrying about rent payments and grocery bills. When writers are less stressed about real-world problems like a place to live or food, they’re able to work harder on their scripts which directly impacts viewers by increasing the quality of writing for our shows and movies.
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The security of their profession has also been bolstered by the exclusion of AI writing. It is not hard to recognize the lack of humanity in every writing sample generated by AI. The first ever movie written and directed by AI,The Safe Zone, is a story about worldwide AI systems taking over humanity. 28 Squared Studios usedthe AI program ChatGPT, and the portrait its algorithm painted of humanity is disturbing and bleak, to say the least. AI may be able to recognize speech patterns and incorporate human behaviors based on documented events. Still, it can’t understand the emotional and spiritual experiences behind all the data it analyzes. The behavior, feeling, and depth involved in the human experience that viewers expect to see in our films and television can only be realistically depicted by real writers because of how detached AI is from these aspects of life. This is one of the most significant concessions the AMPTP made because, while studios wanted to integrate theuse of AI to cut production costs, viewers will now be saved from stories they can barely connect to in a more meaningful way.
Taking Care of Writers Gives Us High-Quality Productions
Film criticism in recent years has often mentioned how scripts seem underdeveloped and rushed, but those films are just further proof of how writers shouldn’t be getting pressured to finish their work as fast as possible. Before the strikes began, writers who didn’t meet their deadlines were rapidly replaced. Now that unionized writers won’t have to spend as much time at a second job to know they’ll be fed and housed, they’ll be far more willing to invest that time into reviewing and editing their work with their writing team, ensuring that audiences will be watching shows and movies with meaningful stories they can connect with. Think of a well-fed, well-rested student given a week to accomplish an essay compared to an under-fed, sleep-deprived student given a day to write the same essay. The student who has the energy and time to accomplish the task well is going to produce a far more meaningful, cohesive piece of writing than the other, and viewers can expect the same results from the writers who are now more capable of maintaining their health and sanity.
There’s One More Hurdle to Getting New Shows
The WGA strike ending is an enormous glimmer of hope for all audiences as Hollywood prepares to get back into full swing. Late-night shows likeThe Late Show with Stephen Colbertare already back in production and will return as early as next week because they don’t use unionized actors in their production. Movies halfway through production but waiting on script rewrites can finally get their work back on track. Writers who were hired but hadn’t started their work yet will finally get to submit first drafts to the producers.
Until the AMPTPworks through negotiations with SAG-AFTRA, though, many studio productions will still be on standby with no actors on set to film. Studios should be feeling the pressure at this point, especially after the praise they received for completing negotiations with the writer’s union. After all, the SAG-AFTRA contract demands are a minimum wage increase, protections from AI, and redefining revenue from streaming services. All these demands are identical to the writers' demands, and common sense would indicate that it should be just as easy to give the actors the same things they conceded to the writers.
One thing for sure, though, is that audiences are going to have a long gap between now and any new shows being released that weren’t already in post-production. If viewers want to have an impact on getting actors back to work,contact the AMPTPand tell them to finalize negotiations with SAG-AFTRA so viewers can finally get back to enjoying quality programming and those responsible for making it can be paid what their efforts are worth.
