Unions set to ratify deal to end US writers' strike

US: Members of the Writers Guild of America were yesterday, in the words of a scriptwriter, "euphoric" at signs that their three-month strike was over, bar a vote by members. The 12,000 union members were expected to endorse an agreement boosting their pay for online use of TV shows and movies, paving a way for a return to work on Wednesday.

"This is a historic moment for writers in this country," said the documentary maker Michael Moore, in New York, at one of two mass union meetings. "There is a certain irony about the achievement. I'd have thought it would be autoworkers or ironworkers getting this victory, but instead it's the people who got beat up in school for writing in their journals."

But even as the writers celebrated the proposed deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the prospect loomed of a strike by screen actors. The contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the studios will expire in the summer and the two sides are hit by the same issues that split the writers.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the writers' union, at meetings of members on Saturday in New York and Los Angeles, presented details of the agreement worked out with the heads of Fox and Disney.

The studios had proposed no remuneration for digital content for writers, but after three months of attrition the writers won concessions based on a principle of "when they get paid, we get paid".

Members at both meetings accepted the new proposal to settle with the contract.

"No one's walking around saying we got everything we wanted," David Fury, an executive producer of 24, told Variety, "but we showed them that our union is strong and maybe they'll think twice the next time about trying to scare us." Others were less enthusiastic, calling the deal a compromise. The strike has cost the film industry an estimated $650 million in wages, with $1 billion lost in earnings in the wider economy. As well as postponing and cancelling many feature films and high-profile TV shows, the strike has caused the cancellation of the Golden Globes, and threatened the Oscars.

© 2008 Guardian Service

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times