Getting Ready for Saturday Night

The WGAw's general membership meeting will be held at the Shrine Auditoriumat at 7pm (NOT 6:30pm as we reported earlier) on Saturday night.


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As of Thursday afternoon, we are all still waiting on specific contract language. Lawyer and blogger Jonathan Handel has pulled together media reports of alleged WGA deal points on his Digital Media Law blog. But none of the rumors or media reports mean much. If it's not in the contract language, it's not real.

We've been emphasizing all week that a strong showing on the picket lines would give the WGA's lawyers and negotiators the maximum leverage to make sure the contract language is in keeping with what the companies pledged during informal talks. And the numbers this week have been great. WGA staff estimate that over 1500 turned out for today's mass picket at Disney.

But there's another bit of leverage at the WGA negotiators' disposal: the possibility of writers all going back to work quickly. For that reason, the prospect of ending the strike quickly is very valuable. If the contract language isn’t finished in good faith, that possibility would be destroyed.

As we wrote here earlier today, the WGA constitution lays out a few timelines for when the strike could be called off. One permissible timeline would have a ratification vote completed by Wednesday.

In light of that option, many members have contacted U.H. privately or posted comments stating the importance of having time to digest the deal points and make up their minds in a responsible way. Keenly aware that there are pilots, tv shows, movies, jobs and a popular ceremony hanging in the balance, they are not asking for weeks, but rather days. When weighed against the three-year life of this contract (or possibly twenty-year life, if DVDs are any indication) 72 hours seems a very reasonable request.

WGA presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship have stated that no action will be taken until some consensus emerges among the membership. We have faith that they will do that. When they say they will let the membership decide, we take them at their word.

Should it become clear on Saturday night that the memberships in New York and LA need a day or two to digest the deal points, we think they will respect that. Likewise, if it's clear that the majority of members strongly supports the contract, we could be back at work on Monday.

The WGA is a democratic union. We argue, we criticize, we make one another crazy. But during this strike, we have stood together with unprecedented and historic unity. We can make it a few more days if necessary.

No one inside or outside the union has forced us into anything, and that won't change now.