March is a big month for the WGA. Just days before union leadership is set to sit down with the major Hollywood studios to hammer out a new multi-year contract, the organization will honors its members’ achievements over the last year at the 78th annual Writers Guild Awards on March 8.
The topic of bargaining came up during the Writers Guild Foundation’s Beyond Words Original Screenplay panel last week, moderated by Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro, who asked what nominated screenwriters David Koepp (Black Bag), Zach Creggers (Weapons) and Ronald Bronstein (Marty Supreme) would like to see their guild focus on in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
“I think there are several [priorities]. I’m just going to speak on one of them,” Koepp said before pointing to the dire needs of the WGA’s health and pension funds as a top concern.
Deadline has repeatedly reported on the need to address the cash flow problems with the WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA health and pension plans. All three above-the-line unions’ funds have been operating in a deficit for the past two years due to rising cost of living amid high levels of unemployment within the film and television industry.
“Healthcare in the United States is a nightmare. When you have a robustly funded health fund, you’re in a position of much greater negotiating strength than when you don’t,” Koepp continued. “So I think that the weakness that is smelled is when you’re underfunded in terms of the healthcare of your members, and it destroys your negotiating position on every other front.”
While Creggers opted not to weigh in, explaining he was “ill-equipped to comment on this,” Bronstein backed the health insurance woes as a big point of focus.
“There’s no way to be productive if you feel instability on that level. I was a projectionist for many years. Josh [Safdie] and I made three movies out of that booth…certainly, the work was getting critical attention. Opportunities were coming, but not enough,” he said. “I needed health insurance. If anyone has seen my last movie, again, which is a highly abstracted version of personal events, you would understand why I need health insurance. So it was through the WGA. It wasn’t until I was able to lock in another way to get health insurance that I was able to get out of this projection booth.”
In terms of how to address the depleted funds, well, that’s a whole other question — and one that doesn’t necessarily have an easy answer. Koepp mentioned Deadline’s report that the AMPTP was considering offering the guilds a massive cash infusion in exchange for longer contract lengths, but explained that he doesn’t believe that’s the correct solution.
“I don’t think it’s worth giving up another two years of contract for. That’s an idea management had. I don’t think that’s a great idea,” he explained, “but it is something that affects every member — everybody in television, everybody in features, everybody in podcast…all across all forms of writing. So, I mean, I’m sort of a one-issue voter. I think that really matters.”
So far, WGA leadership has been fairly quiet when it comes to the guild’s negotiating priorities for 2026. The union is hosting a series of member meetings this month to discuss the bargaining cycle before firming up its official positions.
Both DGA and SAG-AFTRA leadership have already weighed in on the healthcare concerns, with newly elected Directors Guild President Christopher Nolan telling reporters recently, “the employers are going to have to raise their contributions. That’s just a fact of life. Health care costs have gone up enormously in this country, and it’s one of the reasons for the last government shutdown. Everybody’s aware of that, and we’ll do our part, but the employers are going to have to step up and do this.”
SAG-AFTRA is currently negotiating with the AMPTP. The Writers Guild of America East and West are expected to begin joint talks on March 16, followed by the Directors Guild in May. The WGA’s current contract expires on May 1, while the other two have a contract deadline of June 30.
