The WGA will hold the last of its four scheduled membership meetings about its upcoming contract negotiations Thursday: one at the Sheraton Universal in Universal City, CA and at the other at the School of Visual Arts Theatre in New York City.
Describing the two previous meetings that were held earlier this month in Los Angeles, the guild said that “inspiration and unity are in the air.” The WGA’s current contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers expires May 1, although no date has been set for the start of negotiations.
“Embracing a spirit of unity and solidarity throughout the guild, WGA has drawn the curtain on its 2023 contract campaign,” the guild said in the most recent posting on its WGA Contract 2023 website. “Over the past two weeks, more than 1,300 WGA members packed two informational meetings at the Writers Guild Theater and the Hollywood Palladium to hear from the guild’s Negotiating Committee and give their thoughts on the upcoming contract talks.”
The process began February 4 when nearly 500 members – including more than 300 WGA captains – gathered at the Writers Guild Theater in Los Angeles to hear leadership discuss some of the goals of the upcoming negotiations, to meet other captains, and to ask questions about the process. Captains act as liaisons between a team of members and the guild; communicate with their teams about guild priorities; address guild-related questions and concerns and mobilize members in support of the guild’s strategic objectives.
Former WGA West president David A. Goodman, currently co-chair of the WGA Negotiating Committee, told the captains attending the first meeting that “Everything this union has accomplished has been because of the captains, because there were individuals who volunteered to be a conduit between their friends and colleagues in the union and the leadership and staff. The individual commitment you all make to serve the union, to serve the other writers in the union is inspiring. It’s invaluable, and you are indispensable.”
The guild noted that this year’s crop of captains is “a mixture of newcomers and veterans of past campaigns,” and that during a pre-meeting gathering in the theater lobby “many of them remarked at the strong turnout and at how pleased they were to be together with their peers in person for the first time in three years. Their primary goal: to soak up as much information as possible so they could be an information resource for members of their teams.”
In its latest posting, the guild also quoted several members who attended the meetings about the importance of serving as captains.
Sara Schaefer, a comedy/variety writer who served on the guild’s Negotiating Committee three years ago, said that “There was a lot of talk when the 2020 negotiations were over. It was like, ‘Next time there’s going to be more power to go for some of the things we’ve been needing for years now. So it’s been building, and I got emotional. When the leadership started giving the presentation, I got tears in my eyes. It was like ‘We’re here! It’s happening!’ It was just very inspiring.”
Aaron Harberts, a showrunner who took part in the WGA’s 100-day strike of 2007-08, said that “When I realized that there were not as many people who had been through 2007, it made me think it sort of falls to those of us who had been through 2007 to help prepare this younger generation and these newer members for some of the things to expect.”