In the 130 days since the WGA strike began, the AMPTP has only offered one proposal to the WGA, on August 11th . Since then, the companies have not moved off that proposal even though the WGA in turn presented our own counterproposal to the AMPTP on August 15th . The current standstill is not a sign of the companies’ power, but of AMPTP paralysis.
One executive said they had reviewed our proposals, and though they did not commit to a specific deal, said our proposals would not affect their company’s bottom line and that they recognized they must give more than usual to settle this negotiation. Another said they needed a deal badly. Those same executives—and others—have said they are willing to negotiate on proposals that the AMPTP has presented to the public as deal breakers. On every single issue we are asking for we have had at least one legacy studio executive tell us they could accommodate us.
When the companies send messages through surrogates or the press about the unreasonableness of your guild leadership, take those messages as part of a bad-faith effort to influence negotiations and not as the objective truth.
Every day Christmas is getting closer and I definitely didn't expect this strike to last until then. These media conglomerates really do have infinite greed.
The first one to do it could be at a significant market advantage given all the halted productions. This sounds like a genuine possibility, despite my cynicism.