On Sunday, board members unanimously supported the tentative three-year contract that calls for increased residuals for projects streamed online, one of the main reasons writers stopped work on Nov. 5, Mitchell said.
The agreement will double the rate that writers are paid for movie and television shows sold online, establish the union’s jurisdiction over programming created for the Internet and provide payment for entertainment that is streamed on websites, according to the terms of the agreement released by the guild.
Though work could resume today, the economic toll for Los Angeles County could be felt for some time, said Jack Kyser, head of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
“Wages lost by both the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the [writers guild] was $2.1 billion,” Kyser said. “But there may still be some lingering pain from the walkout, where some shows have to deal with struggling ratings and could wait until the start of next season to resume new shows.”
That figure may not tell the whole picture, as lost wages from below-the-line workers — those who work in Hollywood but do not claim membership in either guild — were not counted.
The walkout also halted production for many television and award shows. One of the biggest causalities was the Golden Globe Awards, in which a list of winners was read during an hourlong news conference instead of the usual pageantry reserved for Hollywood’s second-biggest awards show. But the vote to return to work assures that the planned Feb. 24 Academy Awards will move forward and that the county will not lose hundreds of millions of dollars, Kyser said.
That good news trickled down to Burbank City Hall, where Mayor Marsha Ramos praised the deal.
