The Writers Guild of America West headquarters. Mario Tama/Getty Images The Writers Guild of America on Wednesday disclosed the details of the surprise four-year deal they reached with studios and streamers the previous weekend, revealing that the tentative contract contains a $321 million infusion into the union’s ailing health plan, higher foreign and domestic residuals and language covering licensing of work for AI training.
The deal also raises minimum payments by 10.5 percent over the course of four years, sweetens the union’s streaming success bonus and expands the number of screenwriters who are guaranteed a second-step payment.
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“Thank you for your support throughout this negotiation,” Guild leaders said in a message to members on Wednesday that contained a summary of the agreement and the deal’s memorandum of agreement. “We felt it every day, and this outcome would not have been possible without the strength and solidarity this membership is known for.”
The WGA West board and the WGA East council unanimously approved the agreement when they met on Tuesday. Union members, meanwhile, will take a vote on whether to ratify the deal or not between April 16 and April 24.
The health plan revitalization was the key issue for writers this round after the plan bled $122 million cumulatively in 2023 and 2024 as the traditional film and television business contracted and health care costs rose nationwide.
The hundreds of millions being infused into the plan per the deal represents the largest-ever increase to this union benefit, according to a studio-side source familiar with the negotiations. That boost is driven in large part by increases to the caps on writer earnings that trigger health contributions. For instance, the cap for screen projects will increase from $250,000 today to $400,000 by May 2, 2028. The studio source said the caps hadn’t changed in decades and is a key reason why the writers’ deal was closed in just three weeks.
The agreement also raises the health fund contribution on reported earnings 3.25 percent in the first year of the deal and 0.5 percent in the second year of the deal, by which time the contribution rate will be 16.75 percent. In order to sustain the health plan, the deal will funnel $25 million from the union’s Paid Parental Leave fund to the health fund. The WGA told members in its summary of the agreement that the Paid Parental Leave fund “will still maintain sufficient funding to pay out benefits.”
But this infusion will come with some cuts to benefits for writers as well. Effective in 2027, active users will go from having no premium to having a $75 monthly premium. Deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums will also increase and changes will be made to out-of-network behavioral health care reimbursements.
As the details about the agreement reveal, writers did not get the AI training compensation that they desired, which was to trigger payment every time their work is used to create generative AI outputs They did establish a requirement, however, that companies provide written notice if they license scripts (or projects based on those scripts) to train a commercial generative AI system that will then create something new. The union has also established that it can ask for a discussion about any such licensing that could include talk of potential compensation for the writer.
The term of the contract — four years — is a major departure from the norm, which has long been three years. As THR has previously reported, the AMPTP sought a longer deal term in order to secure greater labor stability following the industry’s 2023 dual strikes. But for the union, a longer deal at a time of industry consolidation and rapid developments to generative AI was always going to be a gamble. The studios were always going to have to sweeten any deal with the WGA in order to convince them that taking such a risk was worth it.
The WGA and the AMPTP officially confirmed that they had reached a new contract deal on Saturday night after multiple outlets, including THR, reported that a tentative agreement had been reached earlier in the day. At the time, the union said only that the agreement “protects our health plan and puts it on a sustainable path, with increased company contributions across many areas and long-needed increases to health contribution caps” and that it “also builds on gains from 2023 and helps address free work challenges.”
More to come.
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