WGA Asks Members To Be Patient

This was sent to membership Friday night, asking for patience as the WGA assesses the deal and moves foward with the AMPTP:

To Our Fellow Members,

As you know, the Directors Guild announced yesterday that it has reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. We are waiting for the full terms of the deal to be made available so that we can carefully analyze and evaluate the language and numbers. Until then, members can review the DGA's press release (found here: http://mail.citrustudio.com/ct/1790174:1963150537:m:1:92379114:351501D9437BA56578A76358C013DC37).
The West Board, the East Council, and the Negotiating Committee will all be meeting soon to discuss the DGA deal and our next steps. As we've done throughout the course of this negotiation, we will be scheduling membership meetings to inform you and hear your questions and concerns as more information becomes available.

This is a critical juncture in our struggle. As this process unfolds, we ask for your patience. No matter what you think of the DGA’s tentative agreement, what is most important is that the Guilds West and East continue to work together in order to achieve our goal: a fair and just agreement for writers.

For more than a month we have been urging the conglomerates to return to the table and bargain in good faith. Now that negotiations with the DGA are finished, the AMPTP has reached out to us to begin informal talks. We are committed to moving the process forward to achieve the best contract possible.

Know, too, that we have signed four more agreements with important, independent feature producers. They are Mandate Pictures, Bob Yari's Sixth Floor Literary Properties, Overt Operations/Anonymous Content, and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. These deals return more people to work and provide further incentive to the media conglomerates to settle our contract soon.

We invite all our members to a consolidated picket line next Tuesday at Paramount studios. As always, picketing information can be found at:
http://mail.citrustudio.com/ct/1790175:1963150537:m:1:92379114:351501D9437BA56578A76358C013DC37.

We look forward to working for you and with you as we move towards a successful resolution. We are all in this together.

Best,

John F. Bowman
Chair, WGA Negotiating Committee

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGA West

Michael Winship
President, WGA East