Writers Guild 2026 Negotiators Interview: Studios Can Pay Up

The Writers Guild of America may be facing a contracting business, a staff strike on its doorstep and a funding crisis for its health plan, but on Tuesday, union leaders made clear they are uncowed heading into this year’s contract negotiations with Hollywood’s top companies.

“Whatever cycle we’re in, writers, we know our value, we know the contributions we make to the industry, and we are not, as I think you know, a union that gives away our power,” union president Michele Mulroney told The Hollywood Reporter.

Mulroney sat for an interview alongside chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman and co-chairs of the WGA negotiating committee, John August and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. The group spoke ahead of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that are set to begin Monday, not long before the contract’s May 1 expiration date.

This year, negotiators are laser-focused on shoring up the union’s health plan, which is in the red and facing a complete depletion of reserves if conditions don’t change soon. Mulroney made clear that securing this benefit is the union’s number one priority and that the labor group will ask for “significant amounts of money” from their employers to make that a reality.

But negotiators for Hollywood’s most aggressive union are also planning on convincing studios to pay up in a number of other ways: by remunerating writers for licensing their work to AI companies, by expanding the union’s success streaming bonus, by extending “second step” screenplay payments to more writers and by amplifying residuals.

Whether the likes of Netflix and Apple TV+, collectively represented by new AMPTP president Gregory Hessinger, will play ball is another matter. But as Stutzman made clear during the interview, she’s not interested in hearing studio execs plead poverty.

“Writers look and say, well, Netflix was just willing to pay $72 billion to buy Warner Brothers, and now it’s $2.8 billion richer just for failing to do that. And Paramount is spending $81 billion. So we’re not interested in hearing there’s no money.”

Read the full interview below.

Does the fact that you struck in 2023 change the strategy or approach for you this time?

DANIELLE SANCHEZ-WITZEL Our hope is that the lesson learned from 2023 is that the companies come to the table to bargain a fair deal from the beginning. That’s our hope. It took 148 days for them to realize that they could negotiate a fair deal that addressed the very real needs and concerns of the writers who make this industry possible. I’ll just start with that.

JOHN AUGUST I’ll add on that a fair deal looks like one that recognizes that writers need to make a career writing film and television and make sure that career is sustainable. And so the priorities in this negotiation are really about the sustainability of this career, both for the individual writers and for the industry who needs these writers to create the film and television that funds this industry.

MICHELE MULRONEY Whatever cycle we’re in, writers, we know our value, we know the contributions we make to the industry, and we are not, as I think you know, a union that gives away our power.

To address the elephant in the room, is a strike a possibility again this year?

MULRONEY Well, I mean, we have to keep all options on the table. And as John said, our members are laser-focused on what we need in this cycle. We have very specific needs, as I think you’re aware because we’ve been very open about it, for our health and pension plans that writers have fought very hard over decades to secure.

ELLEN STUTZMAN In every negotiation writers come in seeking a fair deal, and it really is about what the companies do. In 2023, none of the people on this call or in that negotiating committee wanted to strike, but the companies left us with no option because they wouldn’t negotiate. And as Danielle said, it took them 148 days to figure out, oops, they could, and did. And that’s why we are really hoping that they’ve retained that lesson when it comes to 2026.

Since we’re on the subject, Ellen, we have new leadership at the AMPTP with Gregory Hessinger. After having met with him, do you think the tone of negotiations will be any different?

STUTZMAN Remains to be seen. I would say they always bargain hard on that side, and I don’t think we expect anything different, but we really do hope that if they want stability, the best way to get stability is by negotiating a fair deal with writers before [the contract’s] expiration.

What would you characterize as your most important or key issues in this round?

MULRONEY As I said earlier, that does come back to the fundamentals of our health and pension plan and making sure that they’re shored up and they’re strong and that they are there for writers. We rely on them heavily. You know that we made improvements to the health fund in both 2017 and 2023, but then the companies obviously made the choice to produce less scripted entertainment in the last bunch of years, going back to 2022 when we saw the beginning of a contraction. And of course that’s put a lot of stress on our fund because fewer writers working means decreased contributions coming into the plan. So writers are, of course, severely aware of the contraction itself, and they’re very clear-eyed on what that has done to stress out our health plan. So we will be coming in asking the companies to increase their contributions in significant ways.

The union has said that at its current rate, the plan will run out of reserves during the next contract term. How does the severity of the state of the health plan impact your leverage on other issues?

MULRONEY Well, again, we’re going to need significant contributions to the health plan, so that will be factored in. But we have, I think, a very tailored and very specific and very strategic set of proposals that we’re putting forward that addresses the core issue. John talked about the sustainability of career as a writer. And so those we’ll need to get attention to. But of course, yes, the health plan is going to be a very, very key headline for us, and we’re making no secret about that.

What do you want to change or expand regarding your AI protections?

AUGUST In 2023, we were the first union in the world to fight for and ultimately win these fundamental protections when it comes to AI and how it impacts our work. And the good news is those specific protections we won have held up. And the studios are not trying to replace us with AI. They’re not adjusting our scripts to generate materials to replace us. Where we have seen changes and more recent changes is with companies like Disney with their deal with Sora, licensing material they own to AI companies to generate AI outputs, and that’s an area of concern. Clearly, the companies own the copyrights on this material, but if they’re taking our scripts to make a movie or a show, and then they’re turning around and are using it to feed an AI model and they’re licensing it to an AI model, that goes back to the principles of the MBA. Which is that when our employers are monetizing our shows and our movies to create things derived from our work, the writers get a share of that.

One of the goals in this negotiation is to stake a claim that if our employers are using material that Guild members wrote to enable AI-generated outputs, they must compensate us. And that’s why we’re laying down this as a foundation that there has to be some payment for training and AI outputs based on our work. This is consistent with what we’ve always done in terms of reuse of our material. And so while it’s a new technology, it’s not a new concept.

One of your main objectives this year is improving the terms of television employment. What specifically are you looking to change or improve in that area?

SANCHEZ-WITZEL We have to continue to build on the gains we made in 2023 in all areas. So free work is a major problem, both in features and TV. Development doesn’t have a calendar anymore in television so we need to protect writers working on pilots from being held exclusive and unable to find other work for long periods while the companies take their time making decisions. And then another major gain that we got in 2023 was ensuring writers rooms would continue to exist and that writers would be involved in the making of a show from the beginning to the end. So we set minimum staff sizes as a floor and the overwhelming majority of shows continue to staff above the minimum; the floor did not become the ceiling. So we’ll continue to improve on those provisions and we’ll look at targeted changes in development rooms and rooms with larger episode orders and in production where our current requirements actually exclude too many shows.

AUGUST On the feature side of this, in 2023 we started addressing free work issues with a guaranteed second step for screenplays. Everyone knows that a screenplay isn’t done in one draft and before 2023, that meant too many writers were simply doing an unpaid rewrite. So the guaranteed second step was an important step to cover some writers. We need to expand this provision to make sure it addresses more writers. We also have to expand our thinking about free work because so often the free work is coming at the request of a producer, and that’s why we want to make sure that if our producers are asking writers to do another draft, that draft is paid for. So it’s designating producers as agents of the company.

You mentioned unfinished business from 2023, with AI being one of those things. Is there anything else that you’re looking to pick up on in this round?

STUTZMAN I would just add, in the area of residuals, we want to continue to build on residuals for all streaming programs as the services continue to grow, domestically and in foreign markets. And the companies continue to increase prices or add advertising and just find more ways to make money off of writers’ material. What writers receive and residual compensation has to keep up with that growth. And similarly with the streaming bonus, which was a great outcome of 2023, to get the companies to say, “We are going to institute some measure of success for these programs and writers can participate in that success.” Which is fundamental to how writers have always participated in the success of their work through residuals as things go to subsequent markets. That was a great thing that the companies absolutely did not want to do. And now we’ve had a few years with it and it’s time to say it should be more money and it should apply to more projects.

You may be starting negotiations as the WGA staff is still on strike. How does the executive staff of the union plan on balancing dealmaking with its own staff and dealmaking with the studios and streamers?

STUTZMAN Well, we can walk and chew gum. We can do two things at one time. First contracts can be challenging and we bargained a fair contract and we’ve done so in good faith. And I think we’ve made an offer that we’ve showed our membership that backs what we say. But regardless of that, we’ve reached out to the WGSU to see if there’s a path forward before we go into the MBA and we’ll see what that does. But we’re really focused, as this group is and the negotiating committee has been for months, on doing the most important thing we do for our members, which is negotiate the MBA.

No negotiating dates on the schedule yet ahead of the MBA negotiations?

STUTZMAN I think we’re going to meet tomorrow.

The WGA has argued that entertainment profits have returned and companies would be disingenuous to cry poverty at this stage. But the streaming business may never be as consistently profitable as the peak of Pay TV was. How do you plan to transition this contract into this brave new world while also dealing with the realities of the streaming landscape?

STUTZMAN But still very profitable, let’s not forget this. It’s almost $25 billion in profits. What, Netflix makes like $10 billion? I’m sorry, the streaming business can be very profitable. I’ve never been in a negotiation where the companies haven’t said, “Oh, something’s not doing great. We can’t afford this. ” And that’s including during the era you’re referring to. So at the end of the day, they can afford to make a fair deal with writers. And look, they have really figured out the streaming business. They have grown subscribers, they have raised prices, they have added advertising, they’re bundling, they’re doing all the things that made cable television so profitable. So I struggle to accept that they would consider this not a good business just because it’s not quite as profitable as it used to be. And writers look and say, “Well, Netflix was just willing to pay $72 billion to buy Warner Brothers, and now it’s $2.8 billion richer just for failing to do that. And Paramount is spending $81 billion. So we’re not interested in hearing there’s no money.

SANCHEZ-WITZEL This is why we’re focused on an agenda for this negotiation that protects the career writers in this industry, because it’s ultimately to the benefit of the companies who rely on us to create the films and series that bring them those billions of dollars.

We’re coming off of a three-year period where so many writers have been hurting from the contraction and the downward pressure on costs. What would be the ideal scenario at the end of these negotiations to improve the situation for writers?

MULRONEY We’ve said this forever, because it’s just the truth, that although we cannot as a union control the number of shows or movies that studios choose to make, or what’s in and out of vogue, the creative mandate’s always shifting. There’s so much we can’t control, but what we do want to make sure that we’re consistent on, it will be an eternal theme for us, is that when a writer is working, they’re compensated fairly, their working conditions are fair, the value of their work is reflected in all aspects of their contract. That’s what this union has done since its inception. It’s what we’ll continue to do in the MBA. It’s an opportunity every three years to really put a fine point on that and zero in on areas where we need to shore things up and make sure that we come out of this with a writer believing work is tough right now, the environment is very, very tough, but when I am working, I know I’m working with the best possible protections around me.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.