Why two strike captains feel hopeful about the WGA's tentative deal

15:54The Hollywood writers' strike reaches a tentative conclusion

The Writers Guild of America is poised to end its five-month strike, after reaching a tentative deal with the studios on Sunday night.

Writers Kathryn Borel and Jackie Penn have been serving as strike captains on the picket line. They join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud via Zoom to share why they have their hopes up this time around.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Kathryn, are you literally crying right now?

Kathryn: Yeah, it has been an emotional time. We became a family on the line. I'm looking at Jackie and I'm just like, "Oh, I'm not gonna get to see her every day now."

Jackie: Don't you make me start crying.

Kathryn: We yelled at a wall for 148 days, and marched, and became camp counselors and therapists on the line. It's been pretty bittersweet. It's wonderful that we have a tentative deal. I'm so excited to see the deal points. I'm so excited to get back to work. But I'm going to miss these people so much, and I need to figure out how to keep an access point to my strike self and these people who are my family now.

Elamin: Jackie, you also look like you're kind of overwhelmed with emotion. I'm sorry to say this, but I creeped your Instagram a little bit and I saw all your posts of celebration. It looked like people were just screaming in total excitement.

Jackie: I mean, especially for the captains. I feel like we've been really having to hold everything together for everyone else.

Elamin: When you're a strike captain, you set the tone.

Jackie: We set the tone, trying to make sure people are safe, that they're informed. So I feel like we really haven't been feeling our own emotions. I think maybe that's part of the release…. I think that's why it's like we don't know how to feel yet. I think we're trying to process all of the feelings that we weren't feeling before.

Elamin: Kathryn, in this moment, it's a deal in principle on all contract points — which the WGA called "exceptional." Based on what you've heard about this deal, what do you feel most excited about?

Kathryn: I feel most excited about the idea that when this strike began, it was so existential. It felt like we were fighting for the soul of our industry and for the soul of our creativity. It felt like an archetypal story, right? It's classic David and Goliath. Our negotiating committee is very conservative, too, and so the fact that they're saying that it's exceptional, I believe that it is exceptional; I believe that no one got left behind on all of the major points.

For me, I'm kind of taking a 10,000-foot view and thinking, we've never lost one of these; I knew we were going to win. But the fact that I think we're winning a historic deal feels really special and important…. We are a bunch of idiot dreamers, and we went up against a bunch of billionaires — and we won. To know that the power of labor is that powerful, to know that we were able to throw our bodies on the line every day and make it, it just feels so hopeful. I can't believe it because hope is the enemy for me, usually. Yeah, I feel hope. It feels incredible.

Elamin: Jackie, it feels like a massive victory. I will say, a deal in theory is not a deal without any kind of compromise. Are you hearing about any concessions that make you [worry], or are you just kind of in the ecstasy of the moment?

Jackie: I think I'm not worried because … I really do feel, like Kathryn said, they have been so conservative. They were managing our expectations. They knew that this was a breaking point not only for us, but other people in our industry. So I have faith that this deal is going to be good. Not to say that we're not going to have to figure out life going forward. But I really do believe that the things that we were fighting for, I believe that we made gains in those areas.

Elamin: Kathryn, last time you were on the show in July, we were talking about people losing their apartments, people who can't afford groceries. You were saying that the writers would keep going no matter what the immediate impact was. There was this understanding that this is an existential turning point in your careers and in this particular line of work. Do you think that resolve shifted along the way as the strike dragged on? 148 days is a long time to be on strike.

Kathryn: I think we got tired, but I don't think the resolve shifted. To me, it feels like this strike, there was such a high degree of literacy in terms of the issues. I hate social media. It drives me crazy. This was a moment where Twitter and Instagram were so crucial in terms of, anytime there was a sneaky move from the press or from the AMPTP, or stories that were being seeded through the trades by the AMPTP — right away, the incredibly smart writers and analysts [online] were like, "This is this is what they're doing. They're trying to break your resolve via PR, via messaging—"

Jackie: —and I think that's why they lost. We were able to continue to control the messaging. This is not 2007; this is 2023. Times are different.

Kathryn: Yeah, exactly. They got knocked out every time because those rumors were not allowed to take hold.

We had a captain on the line who did lose her home. She's in the process of driving to Arizona right now to live with family. But I know that she'll be back. If you talk to her — and she's been public about this, her name is Sarah — if you talk to Sarah about it, she doesn't not believe in the strike. She's not angry about it. She's just like, "We were fighting for the soul of the thing, and we won it." And she's like, "I feel free. It's very confusing. I don't know what's going to happen next." But this fight was not an option. We had to do it.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.