The Writers Guild of America voted almost unanimously to strike.
More than 9,000 members of the union responsible for movie and television dialogue cast 97.85% of their ballots to authorize a work stoppage once their contract expires on May 1.
That vote represents Writers Guild of America, West members in Los Angeles and Writers Guild of America, East in lower Manhattan.
Union representatives urged members last week to vote Monday in support of calling a strike “if the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) are unwilling to meet our reasonable demands.”
This would be only the seventh time in 63 years — and the first time since 2007 — WGA members walked off the job. Scribes are asking for a significant increased minimum wage “to address the devaluation of writing in all areas of television, new media and features,” according to the union’s list of demands.
The 2007 shutdown stunted the movie and TV industry for more than three months. A 2017 strike was narrowly averted in 2017 after union members approved a strike before a three-year deal was reached.
Writers are also asking for compensation to be standardized and for residual terms for features without regards for whether they’re released in theaters or on streaming service, which have greatly changed the film industry since the last WGA strike.
Negotiations between the WGA and AMPTP began March 20, according to CNN.
The guild represents writers for platforms including film, television, streaming, online media and podcasts. Writers who don’t work under the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA), which includes broadcast TV, radio, streaming news and some areas of nonfiction broadcasting, would not be required to strike, according to the WGA’s East Coast office.