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The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the generic term of two different American labor unions, representing writers in film, television, radio, and online media:

The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL-CIO national trade union center
The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW), headquartered in Los Angeles but unaffiliated.

Although both organizations operate independently, they perform some common activities, including negotiating contracts and launching strike actions in unison.

Background and founding

Both organizations of the Writers Guild of America were established by 1954 after the merging of groups from other writers labor unions. The Authors Guild (AG) was originally founded in 1912 as the Authors' League of America (ALA) to represent book and magazine authors, as well as dramatists. In 1921, the Dramatists Guild of America split off as a separate group to represent writers of stage and, later, radio drama. That same year, the Screen Writers Guild (SWG) was formed to represent film screenwriters, but operated primarily more as a social organization until 1933 when the group affiliated with the AG and took on a more active role in labor negotiations. With the emergence of the television industry by 1948, the SWG and a Television Writers Group within the AG began to represent TV writers. In recognition of the growing complexity of representing members in many different fields of entertainment writing, the unions reorganized in 1954. Both the Authors Guild and the Dramatists Guild would continue to represent writers in print media, the SWG would fold, and those working in motion pictures, TV, and radio would be represented by two new guilds, headquartered on both coasts: the WGAE and the WGAW.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Common activities

Although the WGAE and the WGAW run independently of each other, they jointly perform some regular activities, including the following:

The Writers Guild of America Awards are presented annually by both guilds in recognition of excellence in film, television, and radio writing, including both fiction and non-fiction. The 1st Writers Guild of America Awards were held in 1949 to honor the best film writers of 1948.^[4] The annual awards show includes simultaneous presentations on both coasts.^[5]
The WGA screenwriting credit system is used to determine who receives credit for writing a film, television, theatrical, or other media work written under the WGA's jurisdiction. The guilds are the final arbiters on who and how writers are listed in the credits.^[6]^[7]
The WGA script registration service is run by both guilds to establish the date of creation of literary property.^{[citation needed]}
Both guilds are members of the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds.^{[citation needed]}

Strikes

The WGAE and WGAW negotiate contracts in unison as well as launch strike actions simultaneously.^[8]

The 1960 Writers Guild of America strike lasted for 22 weeks. The negotiated contract included the first residuals for theatrical films, and the improved pensions.^[9]
The 1981 Writers Guild of America strike lasted for 13 weeks. The negotiated contract included establishing payment terms for "pay TV" cable programs.^[9]
The 1985 Writers Guild of America strike lasted two weeks. At dispute was the formula for paying home video residuals.^[9]
The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike lasted from March 7 to August 7, 1988. Among the disputes were residuals from syndicated reruns of hour-long shows.^[9]
The 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike lasted from November 5, 2007, to February 12, 2008. Among the disputes were residuals from content made for new media and programs on DVD. The production of several television shows were affected by the strike.^[9]
The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike lasted from May 2 to September 27, 2023. Among the disputes were residuals from the use of AI and streaming media.^[10]^[11] Many productions were impacted by the strike.