By Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood film and TV writers voted overwhelmingly in favor of giving union negotiators the power to call a strike if contract talks with studios break down, the Writers Guild of America said on Monday.
The WGA, in a statement on Twitter, said 97.85% of members who voted cast ballots in favor of letting negotiators order a work stoppage after May 1.
Writers say they have suffered during the streaming TV boom, in part due to shorter seasons and smaller residuals, and are seeking pay increases from Netflix Inc, Walt Disney Co and other studios.
The last WGA strike, in 2007 and 2008, lasted 100 days. TV networks broadcast re-runs and more reality shows, while the cost to the California economy was estimated at $2.1 billion, according to the Milken Institute. Most TV and film writers live in Los Angeles or New York.
Studios do not want another disruption after COVID-19 shut down production worldwide for months. But sources close to the studios say budgets are tight at a time when Wall Street wants to see profits from multi-billion dollar streaming investments that are draining balance sheets.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents Comcast Corp, Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Netflix and others, said in a statement that its goal was “to reach a fair and reasonable agreement.”
“An agreement is only possible if the Guild is committed to turning its focus to serious bargaining by engaging in full discussions of the issues with the companies and searching for reasonable compromises,” the statement said.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chris Reese and Richard Chang)
