The Writers Guild of America on Wednesday disclosed the details of the surprise four-year deal leaders 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 increases second-step payments for screenwriters.
“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. The contraction of the traditional film and television business as well as overall healthcare inflation took a toll on the plan’s financials.
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. The deal will additionally 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 these changes will come with some cuts to benefits for writers in return. Starting in 2027, active plan users will go from having no premiums to having $75 monthly premiums. Deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums will increase and changes will be made to out-of-network behavioral health care reimbursements. Starting in 2027, the earnings threshold needed to qualify for coverage will increase from $46,759 to $53,773.
As the WGA’s materials about the agreement reveal, writers did not get the AI training compensation that they desired, which was to trigger payment when 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 cover potential compensation for the writer.
As is typical of union agreements, the deal also increases writers’ pay. The majority of minimum payments to writers will increase by 1.5 percent in the first year of the contract and 3 percent in the second, third and fourth years. The residual base for domestic and foreign high-budget streaming projects will increase by 2.5 percent in 2027 and by another 2.5 percent in 2029.
The most successful streaming platforms (Netflix, Amazon and Disney+), meanwhile, will pay more in foreign residuals to writers. Those residual payments will increase 6 percent in the first year of the contract and then increase according to the residual base for the second and fourth years.
The union’s streaming success bonus will also see an increase starting in 2027, with titles that are viewed by 20 percent of a streamer’s domestic subscribers incurring a bonus of 75 percent of its domestic and foreign residual, up from 50 percent.
For screenwriters, the agreement increases “second-step” payments when they are hired to write a first draft of a screenplay from 200 percent of the applicable minimum to 225 percent. It establishes a minimum payment for “page one” rewrites — when a writer is tasked with essentially rewriting an existing screenplay — that is higher than a typical fee for rewrites.
Starting in 2027, TV writers will receive a new rule that if/come deals cannot be exclusive until a company has paid the writer an initial fee, the first step of the pilot. Format fees will increase 42 percent and span protections will cover more writers.
The term of the WGA’s tentative 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 is 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 is 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.
WGA West executive director Ellen Stutzman led the negotiations for the union with negotiating committee co-chairs John August and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, while AMPTP president Greg Hessinger led the talks for the studios and streamers.
