Writers Guild Ratifies Four-Year Contract Deal With Studios

As seen in Variety:

Members of the Writers Guild of America gave the green light on Friday to a four-year deal with studios and streamers that will stem the bleeding of the union’s ailing health plan.

The atypically long pact, which injects $321 million into the plan, was supported by slightly more than 90 percent of members and rejected by 9.6 percent in a ratification vote.

“In the face of industry contraction and runaway healthcare cost inflation, writers were able to secure a contract that returns our Health Fund to a sustainable path and builds on gains from the 2023 strike,” WGA West president Michele Mulroney said in a statement as she thanked everyone involved in the process.

The results arrived after union negotiators sought to convince members that trading a shorter deal for the largest-ever boost to annual health funding in the union’s history was a worthy bargain. “Agreeing to a four-year deal this time allowed us to get more and new funding for the health plan than we’ve actually ever gotten before,” the co-chair of the WGA’s negotiating committee, Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published earlier in the week.

Union members also had to swallow changes to their health plan as a result of the deal. Starting in 2027, individual plan users will be required to pay $75 per month for a PPO plan with previously no premium. Earnings thresholds required to qualify for the plan will increase, as will deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. Amid this transformation, however, the contract deal introduces a lower-cost plan that can serve as an alternative for writers with a $25 a month premium.