WGA Strike: Patric Verrone Sees Parallels and Contrasts From 2007 in Guild’s ‘Righteous Cause’

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor It’s deja vu all over again for Patric Verrone, the former WGA West president who led the guild during the 2007-08 writers strike.

Verrone, who spoke to Variety while picketing outside Fox Studios in West Los Angeles, sees a number of parallels to the dynamic that led to the work stoppage in November 2007 but also a number of important differences.

He is a member of the negotiating committee that has been wrangling this latest three-year contract with executives at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. “I would say the chief similarity is that in 2007, and in 2023, the management didn’t believe us, when we said we were going to strike and that our demands were genuine, and that we had the full support of our membership,” Verrone said. “There was skepticism on the part of the companies that this would actually happen.” The biggest difference from the past strike is a welcome one for Verrone, who said the cutthroat business environment has led to studios squeezing costs for creatives and crew members at all levels. “The amount of support from the rest of the labor movement in Hollywood and internationally has been astonishing,” he said. “Part of that is attributable to the fact that the companies have been doing this to everybody.” Not surprisingly, Verrone also believes there’s an echo from 2007 in the thorny issues that the WGA is dealing with in this round of bargaining.

Back then, the guild’s overarching goal was to ensure it had full jurisdiction and compensation formulas for writers when their work was distributed via online platforms.