Former WGA President Patric Verrone Says Writers Are “Serious About Our Demands” Ahead Of Awards

Writers are preparing to celebrate or commiserate at the WGA Awards and there’s plenty of talk of the looming negotiations with the AMPTP.

Patric Verrone, who was President of the WGA West between 2005 and 2009, knows a thing or two about how these negotiations go, given that he was in charge during the last major strike.  

“I hope the lesson taken from all this was that the companies realize that we’re serious about our demands and we have an active and engaged membership that agrees with the leadership and is prepared to do whatever is necessary,” he said.

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Information and date seemed to be his priority. “One of the things we achieved in the 2007 negotiation and strike was access to data. We want to continue that and potentially increase that,” he added.

Verrone, who has worked on series such as Futurama, and The Simpsons, didn’t want to get drawn into specifics, about whether mini rooms or AI was a hot topic. “There are other more recent former presidents here that you can talk to about that, including the two who were the chairs of the committee. But all the issues are important,” he said.

While he said that “everybody feels squeezed” and the guild is trying to “address everybody’s concerns”, he added that having attended a number of meetings, that “membership seems full well behind the leadership”.

This comes after the WGA unveiled its Pattern of Demands last week, highlighting some of the major issues that it would like to discuss with the studios ahead of the start of the March 20 talks.

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