The WGA West appears to have finally reached a tentative agreement with its staff union.
The Writers Guild Staff Union said on Friday that they’d reached a deal on their first union contract with their employers after nearly three months on the picket line. Now, the agreement will be put to the full 116-member bargaining unit for ratification.
Deadline has reached out to the WGA West for comment.
Per the WGSU, the tentative contract does include seniority provisions in layoffs and a no-strike clause that both parties agree protects concerted activity. As for wages, upon ratification, all WGSU members will receive a minimum 4% salary increase retroactive to January 1, 2026, an additional 4% increase in August of 2026, and a third 4% increase in August of 2027.
“A ratification vote will be held in the coming days. The Bargaining Committee is enthusiastically recommending our members vote yes. Once ratified, the WGSU strike will end and Writers Guild staff will return to doing what we do best: defending the writers’ hard-fought gains and helping them build collective power,” the WGSU bargaining committee said in a statement on Friday.
The WGSU, made up of 116 non-supervisory staff members, called a strike in February. The parties have been negotiating a first contract since September, following the staff’s organization with the Pacific Northwest Staff Union last spring.
The two parties had largely been at an impasse since the strike began, especially once the WGA West entered its own talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new contract to represent film and TV writers. Sources familiar with WGAW-WGSU talks told Deadline that western executive director Ellen Stutzman had laid out the “path to a deal” in March, which at the time was seemingly for the staff to take the offer that management had put on the table as-is.
WGA West management continued to dig their heels in after AMPTP talks ended, refusing for several weeks to negotiate further with the staff union after a “last, best and final” offer on April 8. The staff union didn’t relent, though, and had even planned a rally on the picket line outside WGAW HQ this Friday to flex their support among writers.
Details of the tentative agreement will likely come available after its ratification, at which point it will become clearer where the parties compromised since they have been publishing detailed side-by-side comparisons between their proposals throughout this process.
Per the WGSU’s memo to members on Friday, the agreement’s provisions include:
- Seniority provisions in layoff procedures that prioritize institutional knowledge and dedication to Writers Guild members.
- Minimum 12 percent increases for all Writers Guild staff over the course of the three-year term, including eight percent increases for all in the 2026 calendar year.
- Raising the salary floor from $43,000 to $57,000 retroactive to August 11, 2025, significantly improving take home pay for our lowest paid members.
- Longevity increases retroactive to January 1, 2026 for any WGSU member who has been in the same position or grade for five, ten, and fifteen years.
- Conversion to a wage scale modeled after the wage scale won by staff union siblings employed by WGA East.
- Just cause provisions with progressive discipline and a stepped grievance process.
- The creation of a Labor-Management Committee to establish healthy worksite communication between staff and Guild leadership.
- Protection of bargaining unit positions from replacement by AI, temporary employees, and/or contractors.
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