1988 Writers Guild Of America Strike

The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike was a strike action taken by members of both the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) against major United States television and film studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The strike, which ran from March 7 to August 7, 1988, affected production on movies and TV shows. At 153 days, it remains the longest strike in the history of the WGA, surpassing the 1960 strike by one week and the 2007–08 strike by seven weeks.

Summary

Formal negotiations between the writers guilds and producers began in January 1988. The main disagreements"Writers Strike Chronology,"
from ''Los Angeles Times'', 8/4/1988 included:
* Residuals for hour-long shows (producers, claiming syndicated reruns of these shows were performing poorly in syndication, wanted a softened, percentage-based formula; writers wanted a residual hike)
* Expanded creative rights (the writers wanted consultation on the choice of actors and directors for some projects)
* Cost cuts in other areas (a producers' demand)

The guilds' previous deal with producers expired on February 29, 1988. One day later, 96% of guild membership authorized a strike. On March 7, 1988, one day after rejecting a softened final offer from producers, 9,000 movie and television writers went on strike. Negotiations took place during March and April under a federal mediator but broke off before resuming on May 23, again with a federal mediator.

After intensive bargaining, producers made a "strike settlement offer" on June 16, 1988; the offer included an extended contract term (to four years) and expansion of creative rights, but still included the percentage-based residuals studios demanded and not a foreign residual increase writers demanded. The offer was turned down by the guilds' membership by a 3–1 margin.

During July 1988, the Guild devised an interim contract. Membership approved it, and more than 150 smaller producers signed it. Major studios and outlets including Fox, Paramount, and the "Big Three" television networks refused projects from the independents who signed the deal, leading to the Guild filing an antitrust suit accusing 18 studios and networks of mounting an illegal boycott. Twenty-one dissident Guild members who still favored the June 16 offer filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board to seek invalidation of Guild rules that barred them from returning to work during a strike; some dissidents threatened to resign Guild membership and return to work if the strike was not settled by July 28.

On July 23, 1988, formal bargaining resumed, again under the auspices of federal mediators; by July 30, however, talks collapsed, with studios threatening to not bargain any further and to concentrate on producing work with non-union scripts. Behind-the-scenes "shuttle diplomacy" involving Guild negotiators, studio heads, and emissaries began on July 31 in an effort to revive talks. Guild officials and studio representatives met on August 2 to discuss the proposals, and on August 3 announced a tentative deal. While the new deal gave studios the sliding residual scale they sought for hour-long reruns, writers won a modest financial gain when hour-long shows were sold internationally. The writers also gained creative rights regarding original screenplays and TV movies. The Guild board approved the deal by a 26–6 vote; Guild membership also approved the deal (2,111 in favor, 412 against), and the strike formally ended on August 7, 1988.

Effects of the strike

Television

The writers' strike forced the major TV networks to hold off the start of their fall 1988 schedule later than usual; rather than the traditional late-September/early-October start, new and returning TV series' debuts were delayed until late October and into November (one NBC series, '' In the Heat of the Night'', and one ABC series, ''Thirtysomething'', did not start their second seasons until early December). In the interim, the networks had to rely on a hodgepodge of programming, including reruns, movies, entertainment and news specials, program-length political advertising, and unscripted original series (e.g. CBS' '' High Risk''). Networks also benefited from sports programming, including NBC, which relied on the Summer Olympics in September and the World Series in October, and ABC, which in addition to its postseason baseball coverage, moved up the start time for the early weeks of ''Monday Night Football'' from 9 p.m. ET to 8 p.m. ET (''MacGyver'', which normally aired at 8 p.m., was not yet ready with new episodes). The 1988–89 television season was the first of three television seasons to have its start delayed due to issues outside of the control of the major networks; the next two instances occurred in the 2001–02 season (due to the networks' news coverage of the September 11 attacks) and the 2020–21 season (due to the suspension of television productions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic).

While waiting for their fall seasons to begin, the networks still had access to scripted original series. Despite refusing earlier in the summer to accept new projects from independents who settled with the Guild, TV networks gained a benefit from the Guilds' decision to offer independent contracts to producers, with the offers beginning in late May 1988. The agreements would allow producers and writers of such shows as ''The Cosby Show'', ''A Different World'', ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', and ''Late Night with David Letterman'' to resume work. Johnny Carson actually resumed work on ''The Tonight Show'' before the agreement, returning with the Guild's blessing on May 11, 1988 (after ''Tonight'' was in reruns since the strike's start) without writers and with his own material; David Letterman would follow suit, returning to ''Late Night'' on June 29.

The strike also led to a revival of '' Mission: Impossible''; ABC, in search of original content for Fall 1988, used reworked scripts from the original version of ''M:I'' and filmed them in Australia (where production costs at the time were lower than that in the Hollywood area), making the new ''M:I'' one of the first American commercial network programs to be filmed there. NBC took a similar approach with its new sitcom '' Dear John'', using some reworked episodes that were from the original version that aired on Britain's BBC
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