Striking writers reached a deal with studios
18 01 2008This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.
The Hollywood directors’ union reached a contract deal with major film and television studios on Thursday, the union said, in a move likely to turn up pressure to settle a 10-week-old strike by screenwriters. The tentative pact between the Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers was reported five days after the two sides opened formal talks. The Directors Guild’s existing contract covering 13,000 members, including directors, assistant directors and unit production managers, expires on June 30. The Directors Guild has a history of reaching swift labor pacts with the studios, but the latest deal has drawn unusually intense scrutiny because of its implications for ending a strike by the Writers Guild of America.
Under the terms of the deal, directors will be granted rights for residual payments for content that is downloaded or streamed over the Internet. The writers’ guild expressed hope that the producers-directors agreement would move forward their own efforts and called on the producers to return to the negotiating table. Now that those negotiations are completed, the AMPTP must return to the process of bargaining with the WGA,” the union said in a statement. We hope that the DGA’s tentative agreement will be a step forward in our effort to negotiate an agreement that is in the best interests of all writers.” The group said they would analyse the terms of the deal and discuss with members the next step in negotiations. Gil Cates, chair of the directors’ negotiations committee, called the deal “groundbreaking and substantial”. The gains in this contract for directors and their teams are extraordinary,” he said. Thank God, we’re all already desperate to see next episodes of our favourite shows.
Source: Reuters
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