The Writer's Guild of America has reached a preliminary deal with the television networks and movie producers that could finally end the 14-week writer's strike, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
The Guild's 10,000 members still need to ratify the pact, but writers can expect to be at their desks again as early as Wednesday once votes are counted, according to the Times.
Guild leaders said Saturday night in front of thousands of unemployed writers that the deal was the best they could hope for because it will provide compensation to writers for materials "created for, streamed and rebroadcasted" on the Internet.
"It is the best deal the Guild has bargained for in 30 years," Patric Verrone, president of the Guild's West Coast branch, told the Times. "Admittedly, the contract has some holes."
Estimates of the strike's economic impacts have ranged from $380 million to $1.5 billion, the Times reported.
-CHRISTOPHER COTTRELL
