WGA To Hold Two More Membership Meetings This Week Ahead Of Contract Talks

deadline.com:

The WGA will hold the last of its four scheduled membership meetings about its upcoming contract negotiations Thursday: one at the Sheraton Universal in Universal City, CA and at the other at the School of Visual Arts Theatre in New York City.

Describing the two previous meetings that were held earlier this month in Los Angeles, the guild said that “inspiration and unity are in the air.” The WGA’s current contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers expires May 1, although no date has been set for the start of negotiations. “Embracing a spirit of unity and solidarity throughout the guild, WGA has drawn the curtain on its 2023 contract campaign,” the guild said in the most recent posting on its WGA Contract 2023 website. “Over the past two weeks, more than 1,300 WGA members packed two informational meetings at the Writers Guild Theater and the Hollywood Palladium to hear from the guild’s Negotiating Committee and give their thoughts on the upcoming contract talks.” The process began February 4 when nearly 500 members – including more than 300 WGA captains – gathered at the Writers Guild Theater in Los Angeles to hear leadership discuss some of the goals of the upcoming negotiations, to meet other captains, and to ask questions about the process.

Captains act as liaisons between a team of members and the guild; communicate with their teams about guild priorities; address guild-related questions and concerns and mobilize members in support of the guild’s strategic objectives.

Former WGA West president David A. Goodman, currently co-chair of the WGA Negotiating Committee, told the captains attending the first meeting that “Everything this union has accomplished has been because of the captains,