The vote total is in on the Writers Guild Strike Authorization Vote. A record (for the Guild) 5,507 members cast ballots with 90.3% voting for authorization. No one is surprised it passed but I think a lot of folks are surprised by that percentage. As I noted in this post, the WGA membership includes a lot of people who regard writing as a secondary or tertiary career and could perhaps be expected to vote in the interests of their other, main careers. I would have expected something more in the 80% range.
The more impressive number is the total number of members who cared enough to vote. There are around 12,000 members in the Writers Guild but many times when we're asked to vote on something, it's in the 30% range. Again, at any given time a lot of our members are simply not involved in TV or movie work and don't pay a lot of attention to Guild matters.
So does this mean no strike? Nope. At last report, the two sides were a hair closer to common ground and this may get them a few hairs closer…but we still want a number of things that the Producers seem determined to not give up. Not to us, not to the directors and not to the actors. The issues and determination are all still there for a nice, long, nasty work stoppage. The one hopeful thing here is that in the past, some of the worst strikes have resulted because the Producers grossly underestimated the Writers' resolve. Thanks to this vote, maybe they have a little better sense of what they're up against.