The flag of surrender has been lifted on all sides of the world of entertainment. The Hollywood Scribe strike has finally come to an end.
After three months of picketing and several shows finding an early place on the chopping block, writers voted to end the strike on Tuesday. In favor votes drastically outweighed naysayers, with 3,492 in favor of an end and only 283 votes to stay off the job.
Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp., helped broker the deal. Moonves told the Associated Press, “At the end of the day, everybody won. It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry.”
The most important outcome of the negotiations were residuals for TV shows and movies distributed online.
Under a tentative contract approved Sunday by the union’s board of directors, writers would get a maximum flat fee of about $1,200 for streamed programs in the deal’s first two years and then get 2 percent of a distributor’s gross in year three — a key union demand.
Other provisions include increased residual payments for downloaded movies and TV programs.
According to Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., the strike took a $3.2 billion toll in direct and indirect costs on the economy of Los Angeles County.
Don’t think the entertainment industry is out of the hot water just yet. The Screen Actors Guild has their contracts up for negotiation in June. The actors will likely fight for the same grievances as the writers and directors.
