DGA Deal On New Contract Changes Dynamics For WGA, But Won’t End Strike – Analysis

deadline.com:

The Directors Guild’s tentative agreement with the studios for a new film and TV contract, reached late last night, eliminated the prospect of an unprecedented WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA three-guild strike which would’ve paralyzed the film and TV industry.

It also likely won’t bring the labor peace the studios and streamers are looking for. But it brings even more attention to the WGA, whose strike is in its second month.

Amid chatter that directors were close to an agreement, WGA leaders on Friday vowed to keep fighting whether the DGA made a deal or not.

As Chris Keyser, co-chair of the WGA negotiating committee, said, “Any deal that puts this town back to work runs straight through the WGA, and there is no way around us.” Even so, the new DGA deal goes a long way toward achieving many of the gains sought by the WGA in terms of wages, foreign streaming residuals, and artificial intelligence, adding pressure on the WGA to take the same deal on those issues in what’s known as “pattern bargaining.” The DGA deal, however, does not address one of the WGA’s core issues: staffing mandates for writers on episodic TV shows, which the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has called a “quota” that is “incompatible with the creative nature of our industry.” The DGA has long had mandatory staffing provisions for various below-the-line members of the director’s team, including unit production managers, assistant directors and associate directors.