Several University alumni returned to work on Wednesday, Feb. 13 as the three-month long Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike ended. The WGA walked the picket lines since Nov. 5, 2007 in protest of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ (AMPTP) policies on writers’ residuals for Internet content and DVD sales.

Viewers should expect to see new episodes of many television shows as soon as next month.

“Driving onto the Warner Bros. lot, I felt like I was going to see an old boyfriend: familiar, but anxious,” said “Cold Case” writer Kate Purdy ’01 of her first day back on the job.

Last week the WGA voted to end the strike, settling on a new contract that will last for the next three years. About 92.5 percent of the 3,775 writers who voted were in favor of ending the strike. The WGA has 12,000 members total.

“I was heartened by our last membership meeting,” said “Ugly Betty” co-executive producer Henry Alonso Myers ’95. “There was almost no dissent—hugely unusual, for writers. We love to bitch. So it was a surprise that the meeting, called at the Shrine Auditorium to answer questions about the proposed contract, felt like a victory rally. It was almost a shock to go back to work so fast.”

As part of the new contract, writers will now be paid a fixed residual of $1,300 for content viewed online until 2010. After that, they will be given two percent of the distributors’ profits made from Internet streaming. The contract also puts in place a new formula for calculating home video residuals.

Purdy noted her satisfaction with the end result.

“I don’t think the contract is perfect, but no contract is,” she said. “More than how the numbers boil down, what’s valuable coming out of the strike is a whole new generation of writers who understand the importance of their union, and a solidarity in membership.”

Myers called the new contract a “decent deal.”

“[It’s] not as good as some of us had hoped, but certainly far from a disaster,” he explained. “When you negotiate a deal, the end result often has things both sides aren’t happy with. That’s a sign that everyone was willing to compromise. Most of us saw this strike as about getting a foothold in new media. The new deal certainly got us that—and a much better foothold than we got in home video 20 years ago.”

However, Myers isn’t sure what to expect after the three-year contract ends.

“I’d be surprised if people wanted to walk out again,” he said. “The goal here was to craft a template that will hold up for a generation; we’ll know better in three years if we’ve done that or not.”

Ed Lee ’95, who has worked for “The Drew Carey Show” and “Class of 3000,” sees this as an opportunity to revise how the WGA interacts with new media.

“Technology is changing so quickly, and with every new method of distributing creative material, whether through desktop computers, DVRs, On-Demand services, cell phones or products we haven’t even heard of yet…I’m sure there will be more battles over how the studios should compensate all of the creative unions,” he said. “Hopefully, through negotiating that percentage of online streaming ad revenue, we were able to set a precedent for any new media that comes out in the future.”

According to the “Economic Forecast Report” for Los Angeles County, the strike has cost $2.5 billion, a number that still hasn’t fully affected Hollywood.

“The hard thing about a writers’ strike is that the economic effects are delayed,” Myers explained. “They come late. And they stay late. We’ll be back at work for a month writing scripts on ’Ugly Betty’ before we go into production. So even though the strike is over, there are a lot of crew people who are still waiting around to go back to work.”

Myers felt well prepared to weather the strike financially.

“Mostly it was a question of finding childcare and helping my wife, as she returned to work…as well as making time for the picket lines,” he said.

For Purdy, the strike became a full-time job. Along with other WGA members, she created the blog “United Hollywood” (http://www.unitedhollywood.blogspot.com) to educate members and the public about the strike.

“Having an Internet site made for more efficient dissemination of information,” Purdy said. “It also allowed for discussion and debate not only amongst our membership, but amongst fans, other union members, family members, and the rest of the world.”

She reflected on the difference between communication during this strike and the last big WGA strike in 1988, noting that a bulletin board was used as the main method of relaying information back then.

“Members would drive to the Guild, read the board, then drive home and get on their telephones to tell their friends what they had read,” she said.

This strike also brought together a generation that typically strays from union activities.

“It’s good to be reminded, once in a generation or so, what the people we work for and negotiate with are capable of doing,” Myers said. “It makes you realize all over again why we have a union in the first place.”

Ultimately, Lee put a positive, University-friendly spin on the WGA’s struggle.

“Current Wesleyan students considering a career in entertainment should know that while the industry is wildly unstable, the Wesleyan alumni network in Los Angeles remains extremely loyal and supportive of each other, even through the toughest of times,” he said. “No matter how tired I got of picketing, it was always comforting to see a fellow Wes alum on the lines with me.”