As a gesture of mutual back-patting or reaching-around or whatever you want to call it, I commend Bob Elisberg for his articles over on The Huffington Post that seek to make sense of the Writers Strike. And by the way, maybe we oughta stop calling it that and start calling it the Producers' Forced Strike or something of the sort. Of all the lunkheaded things that have been written and said about this ugly negotiation, none is more lunkheadier than the notion that anyone in power at the Writers Guild wanted to be on strike. In all the WGA picket lines I've walked, I've never encountered anyone who was "strike-happy" unless you define that in some aberrant, awkward way. ("He preferred going on strike to taking a rotten deal? Why, he must be strike-happy!")
So where are we today with this thing? They're negotiating, there's a news blackout and there are rumors that a deal has already been quietly made and that they're in there even as we speak, checking the commas on it. Excuse me if I don't believe that last part. It's possible but I think it would be healthier not to believe it. At least, not yet.
I do think a settlement is possible this year because I think the Producers have realized something. In order to soften this Guild up to the point where they'd take a crummy deal, they'd have to wait until March or April at the soonest. But there's really no point in settling with the WGA in April because the Screen Actors Guild contract is up at the end of June, and SAG is at least as militant on all the key issues as we are. That has been the brilliance of the WGA-SAG alliance in protest rallies and online videos. It has put the AMPTP on clear notice that SAG considers our fight as Coming Attractions for their fight.
To settle with the WGA in April would mean you'd be getting scripts in May and June…just in time to not start filming them because you're worried that SAG will strike. I mean, there ain't a lot of point to having scripts for My Name is Earl if Earl's out on the picket line. You're not going to start shooting a feature film on June 15 if the actors could all walk out on June 30. The only thing that makes sense from the Producers' position is to settle with the WGA and then try to make an early deal with one of the other two above-the-line guilds…probably the Directors Guild and then SAG. Once they've settled the trigger-point issues with two of those labor organizations, the third won't have a lot of room in which to manuever, nor a lot of necessity.
Like I said, I think it's healthier not to presume we're in the Endgame just yet. In any negotiation, one or both parties is liable to throw that last minute lowball, hoping the other party is eager enough to be done with it all. The WGA came into this with a pretty long list of issues that needed to be addressed, and the rank-and-file is expecting movement in some of those areas even if the matters of DVDs and Internet Streaming are resolved. That's why I don't think we're going to hear before the week is out, as some people seem to be predicting, that there's a deal that the WGA Negotiating Committee can recommend to the members. But I've been wrong before and on this, I'd love to be wrong again.