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    National Symphony Orchestra Players Reach Deal After Brief Strike

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    The musicians won a raise of about 8 percent over two years after a short work stoppage, the Washington ensemble’s first in 46 years.The musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington reached a deal with management for a new labor contract on Friday after a tense, short-lived strike threatened to disrupt the season.Under the agreement, the players will receive a raise of 4 percent this season and another 4 percent increase in the 2025-26 season. They had previously rejected an offer of a 13 percent raise over four years.In an escalation after months of labor talks, the musicians walked off the job on Friday for the first time since 1978. They picketed in red shirts outside the Kennedy Center, which oversees the ensemble, holding signs that said, “No pay, no play!” The strike lasted from about 11 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.After the strike began, the National Symphony Orchestra’s managers said they would cancel the opening gala, a major fund-raising event scheduled for Saturday. But they reversed course once the deal was reached, saying the gala would go forward.Edgardo Malaga Jr., the president of the players’ union, Local 161-710 of the American Federation of Musicians, said the players were relieved by the agreement.“The musicians are very happy,” he said. “We felt we were successful. We’ve got some good gains here that we can be proud of.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New York Philharmonic Players Reach Deal Raising Base Pay to $205,000

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      Under a new labor agreement, expected to be ratified Friday, the musicians will get a 30 percent raise over three years, making them among the highest paid in the country.The New York Philharmonic, the oldest orchestra in America, has long been one of the most revered. But in recent years, its musicians have been paid significantly less than their peers in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.That will soon change. Under a new labor contract announced on Thursday, the Philharmonic’s musicians will get a raise of 30 percent over the next three years, bringing the base salary to $205,000. They will be among the highest paid orchestra musicians in the country.“It’s transformative,” said Colin Williams, the associate principal trombone, who helped lead the negotiations. “It speaks to the commitment from the Philharmonic’s leadership to making sure this place is really a destination orchestra.”The Philharmonic’s leaders praised the agreement, which the ensemble’s roughly 100 musicians are expected to ratify on Friday, when their existing contract expires.“This is a restorative settlement that brings our musicians to the level of their peer orchestras,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s interim leader, said in an interview.Included in the agreement are changes meant to make the hiring process fairer and more transparent, including provisions that will require musicians to play from behind a screen in the final rounds of auditions. (A screen has been optional in the final round.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New York Philharmonic Opens Its Season Amid Labor Talks and Troubles

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      The orchestra is working to negotiate a new contract with musicians, resolve a misconduct inquiry and hire a new chief executive.On a recent night at Lincoln Center, a group of New York Philharmonic musicians, dressed in matching black shirts and carrying union leaflets, fanned out and began to evangelize.“Support the musicians!” Thomas Smith, a trumpet player, told a crowd of concertgoers.It was one of the New York Philharmonic’s first concerts of the fall, and the musicians, in the middle of high-stake labor talks, were alerting their audience to what they hoped would be embraced as startling facts.The orchestra’s players have not had a raise since 2019, and they are paid substantially less than colleagues in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.“We need your help,” Alina Kobialka, a violinist, said as she handed out leaflets.The scene was a reminder of the stark challenges this season for the Philharmonic, which not so long ago seemed to be beginning a vibrant new chapter.The labor agreement between management and the musicians expires on Friday, only a few days before the orchestra’s opening gala, a major fund-raising event.The Philharmonic lacks a permanent president and chief executive, after the sudden resignation in July of its leader, Gary Ginstling. An investigation into sexual harassment and misconduct at the Philharmonic has dragged on. And the ensemble, which is awaiting the arrival in 2026 of the star conductor Gustavo Dudamel, has no full-time music director this season or next.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Actors to Start Voting on Contract on Tuesday

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      The SAG-AFTRA board voted on Friday to send the tentative deal with studios to its members for a ratification process that will end in early December.The union that represents movie and television actors said on Friday that its national board had voted with 86 percent support to send a tentative contract with studios to members for ratification.The ratification process will start on Tuesday and end the first week in December. Actors can go back to work immediately, however.Members are expected to approve the contract, which Fran Drescher, the union’s outspoken president, valued at more than $1 billion over three years. She highlighted the “extraordinary scope” of the agreement, noting that it included protections around the use of artificial intelligence, higher minimum pay, better health care funding, concessions from studios on self-taped auditions, improved hair and makeup services on sets, and a requirement for intimacy coordinators for sex scenes, among other gains.“They had to yield,” Ms. Drescher said at a news conference during a nearly 30-minute monologue that touched on Veterans Day, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula costume, her parents, the Roman Empire, the stubbornness of studios, Buddhism, Frederick Douglass and her dog.The union, SAG-AFTRA, which represents tens of thousands of actors, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios, reached the tentative agreement on Wednesday. It followed a bitter standoff that contributed to a near-complete shutdown of production in the entertainment industry. At 118 days, it was the longest movie and television strike in the union’s 90-year history.The tentative deal was also historic, according to the studio alliance, which said it reflected “the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.” The actors’ strike, combined with a writers’ strike that started in May and was resolved in September, devastated the entertainment economy. Hundreds of thousands of crew members were idled, with some losing their homes and turning to food banks for groceries. Some small businesses that service studios — costume dry cleaners, prop warehouses, catering companies — may never recover.The dual strikes caused roughly $10 billion in losses nationwide, according to Todd Holmes, an associate professor of entertainment media management at California State University, Northridge. While the big studios are based in Los Angeles, they also use soundstage complexes in Georgia, New York, New Jersey and New Mexico.Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist with the Milken Institute, an economic think tank, was more cautious with his estimate, putting losses at more than $6 billion. He said it “may take a while” to know the true size.On Friday, the SAG-AFTRA board, which includes Sharon Stone, Sean Astin and Rosie O’Donnell, made public a summary of the tentative contract’s contents. While not receiving everything it asked for, the union achieved significant gains.The final sticking point involved “synthetic fakes,” or the use of artificial intelligence to create an entirely fabricated character by melding together recognizable features from real actors. The union won consent and compensation guarantees.“You could imagine prompting a generative A.I. system that’s been trained on a bunch of actors’ performances to create a digital performer, for example, who has Julia Roberts’s smile,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s executive director, said in an interview. “Before this agreement, there wasn’t any contractual or legal basis to require consent or prohibit that. Now there will be.”But this strike was never about stars. A-listers like Jennifer Lawrence and Brad Pitt negotiate their own contracts (or, more precisely, their agents do). The tentative contract covers minimums, or what actors who don’t have any clout get paid.SAG-AFTRA had demanded an 11 percent raise for minimum pay in the first year of a contract. Studios had insisted that they could offer no more than 5 percent, the same as had recently been given (and agreed to) by unions for writers and directors. In the end, the union was able to win a 7 percent first-year raise.“This is really important because it sends a very clear signal to other unions,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said. “I’m not aware of anyone ever being able to break the pattern before, because it’s always been that the A.M.P.T.P. establishes a number and everyone gets held to it.”SAG-AFTRA failed in one regard. It had gone into negotiations demanding a percentage of streaming service revenue. It had proposed a 2 percent share — later dropped to 1 percent, before a pivot to a per-subscriber fee. Ms. Drescher had made the demand a priority, but companies like Netflix balked, calling it “a bridge too far.”Instead, the studio alliance proposed a new residual (a type of royalty) for streaming programs based on performance metrics, which the union, after making some adjustments, agreed to take. It is similar to what the Writers Guild of America achieved in its negotiations: Actors in streaming shows that attract at least 20 percent of subscribers will receive a bonus.Unlike the Writers Guild, however, SAG-AFTRA also got the studio alliance to agree to a system in which 25 percent of the bonus money will go into a fund that will be distributed to actors in less successful streaming shows.“I felt like, is this a win or a loss?” Ms. Drescher said. “But we’re getting the money. We opened a new revenue stream. What matters is that we got into another pocket.” More

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      Studios Said to See Progress in Talks With Striking Actors

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      The entertainment companies are growing optimistic that the work stoppage may end soon, though some issues remain unresolved, people briefed on the matter said.Following several productive days at the negotiating table, Hollywood studios are growing optimistic that they are getting closer to a deal to end the 108-day actors’ strike, according to three people briefed on the matter.These people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, cautioned on Sunday that some issues remain unresolved with the actors, including protections around the use of artificial intelligence technology to create digital replicas of their likenesses without payment or approval. But other knots had started to become untangled, the people said.SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, had been asking for an 11 percent raise for minimum pay in the first year of a contract, for instance. Studios had insisted that they could offer no more than 5 percent, the same as had recently been given (and agreed to) by unions for writers and directors. Early last week, however, studios lifted their offer to 7 percent. By Friday, SAG-AFTRA had eased its demand to 9 percent.SAG-AFTRA did not respond to requests for comment. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the major entertainment companies, declined to comment.In an email to SAG-AFTRA members on Friday night, the union’s negotiating committee said, “We completed a full and productive day.” On Saturday, the union sent a routine reminder about pickets planned the coming week, including one scheduled for Wednesday at Walt Disney Studios. The sides continued to negotiate on Sunday.Last week, studio executives made it known — in conversations with filmmakers, agents, reporters and actors themselves — that a deal must be done (or nearly so) by the end of this week, or else sets were likely to remain dark for another two months.Put another way, unless talks speed up, January could be the soonest that casts (and crews) see paychecks.Brinkmanship? Of course. It’s a standard part of any strike. The companies, however, said they were simply pointing to the calendar. It will take time to reassemble creative teams, a process complicated by the coming holidays. Preproduction (before anyone gathers on a set) for new shows can take up to 12 weeks, with movies taking roughly 16 weeks. Bake in the time for contract ratification by the SAG-AFTRA members.More than 4,000 mostly workaday actors responded on Thursday with an open letter to their union, saying, “We have not come all this way to cave now.” They added, “We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed.”At the same time, some stars have pressured union leaders to approach negotiations with greater urgency. Out-of-work crew members have also grown increasingly frustrated with the Hollywood shutdown. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents 170,000 crew members in North America, has estimated that its West Coast members alone have lost more than $1.4 billion in wages.For their part, companies are under pressure to salvage their spring television schedules and movie lineups. On Friday, Disney delayed a live-action version of “Snow White,” which had been scheduled for March 26, because it would be impossible to finish in time. Earlier in the week, Paramount pushed back Tom Cruise’s next “Mission: Impossible” movie, along with “A Quiet Place: Day One,” starring Lupita Nyong’o.The entertainment business has been at a standstill for months because of strikes by writers, who walked out in May, and actors, who joined them in July. The writers’ strike was resolved last month, prompting hopes of a speedy resolution between studios and the actors’ union. Instead, the process has been slow.Talks between the sides restarted on Tuesday after breaking down earlier in the month over a union proposal for a per-subscriber fee from streaming services, which Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos publicly dismissed as a “levy” and “a bridge too far.” SAG-AFTRA accused studio executives of “bully tactics.”It is unclear how the streaming issue might be resolved. But there is real hope in Hollywood that people may soon be back to work.“At this time, we have no concrete information from any studio,” Michael Akins, an International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees official in Georgia, wrote to members on Friday. “But the writing is clearly on the wall that the industry shutdown is in its final days.”John Koblin More

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      Philadelphia Orchestra and Musicians Reach Contract Deal

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      The agreement, which includes salary increases of nearly 16 percent over three years, ends months of tense negotiations.After months of wrangling at the negotiating table, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the union representing its musicians have reached a deal for a new contract.The three-year contract, which the members of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 77, ratified on Saturday, includes salary raises of nearly 16 percent over three years, a central demand of the musicians, who had argued that they were underpaid compared with other leading ensembles.The musicians’ union praised the agreement, which it said also included pay raises for substitutes as well as a requirement that the orchestra increase the number of musicians it hires each year to fill vacancies. The base salary for musicians in the orchestra in the 2022-23 season was $152,256, including compensation for recordings.“We are an ensemble, and we stuck together and refused to accept substandard deal after substandard deal,” David Fay, a double bass player since 1984 and a union leader, said in a statement. “This contract is a victory for the present and future for the Philadelphia Orchestra and its world-class musicians.”The contract was the first that the orchestra has negotiated since the coronavirus pandemic, which put financial strains on the ensemble, forcing the cancellation of more than 200 concerts and resulting in the loss of about $26 million in ticket sales and performance fees.“Our joint challenge was to find a new and financially responsible path forward that recognizes and furthers the placement of the Philadelphia Orchestra as one of the world’s greatest musical ensembles,” said Ralph W. Muller and Michael D. Zisman, who lead the board of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Kimmel Center Inc., a joint entity that oversees the orchestra.The dispute grew heated over the past several months as orchestra members rejected several proposals from management. A vote in August to authorize a strike, if needed, won the support of 95 percent of those participating. Concerts proceeded as usual and talks continued through the expiration of the old contract in early September.The orchestra has gone through other painful periods in recent decades. It declared bankruptcy in 2011 after the financial crisis but has since balanced its budget and worked to rebuild. Despite expense cuts and bankruptcy, that has not been easy: In 2016, the musicians held a brief strike that began on the night of the orchestra’s season-opening gala. More

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      Talks Between Striking Actors and Studios Are Suspended

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      The sides said they remained far apart on the most significant issues, dealing a blow to hopes that the entertainment industry could soon fully roar back to life.Negotiations between the major entertainment studios and the union representing tens of thousands of actors have collapsed, with both sides saying on Thursday morning that they remained far apart on the most significant issues.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, said that it was suspending talks because they were “no longer moving us in a productive direction” after a session on Wednesday. SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, which has been on strike since July, accused studio executives of “bully tactics,” and said the studios recently presented an offer “that was, shockingly, worth less than they proposed before the strike began.”The collapse of the negotiations is a significant setback for the entertainment industry, which has essentially been at a standstill for months because of dual strikes by actors and screenwriters. On Monday, more than 8,000 screenwriters ratified a new three-year contract with the studio alliance, formally ending their monthslong labor dispute. There was optimism that a deal with the actors would follow and that Hollywood could soon fully roar back to life.But with actors continuing to strike, most television and movie production remains suspended. The financial fallout has been significant. The California economy has lost an estimated $5 billion. Tens of thousands of behind-the-scenes workers have been out of work for months. Share prices for many major media companies have dropped, and now there is a further threat to next year’s box office results.Like their counterparts in the screenwriters guild, leaders of the actors’ union have called this moment “existential.” They are seeking wage increases, as well as protections around the use of artificial intelligence. Actors have now been on strike for 91 days; screenwriters recently returned to work after a 148-day walkout. The last time both unions had been on strike at the same time was 1960.When negotiations between the actors’ union and the studios resumed last week — just days after the studios and screenwriters had reached a tentative agreement — it represented the first time that the sides had met since the actors went on strike on July 14. There were five bargaining sessions, and many industry observers believed that the talks would soon lead to a deal.In a statement released early Thursday morning, the studio alliance said it had offered wage increases, met “nearly all of the union’s demands on casting” and proposed further protections around the use of A.I. The alliance also said it offered “the same terms that were ratified” by both the writers’ and directors’ unions regarding wage increases and streaming royalties.The alliance also said, however, that the actors’ union wanted a viewership bonus that “would cost more than $800 million per year, which would create an untenable economic burden.”Union leaders accused studio executives of walking away from the bargaining table “after refusing to counter our latest offer.”“These companies refuse to protect performers from being replaced by artificial intelligence, they refuse to increase your wages to keep up with inflation, and they refuse to share a tiny portion of the immense revenue YOUR work generates for them,” union officials said in a statement addressed to members. “Our resolve is unwavering,” the statement continued. “Join us on picket lines and at solidarity events around the country and let your voices be heard.” More

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      in Television

      Hollywood Turns to Actors’ Strike After Writers Agree to Deal

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      The studios and the actors’ union haven’t spoken for more than two months, but a deal is needed before the entertainment industry can fully return.Hollywood’s actors are back in the spotlight.With screenwriters reaching a tentative agreement with the major entertainment studios on a new labor deal on Sunday night, one big obstacle stands in the way of the film and TV industry roaring back to life: ending the strike with tens of thousands of actors.The two sides have not spoken in more than two months, and no talks are scheduled.Leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, have indicated a willingness to negotiate, but the studios made a strategic decision in early August to focus on reaching a détente with the writers first. A big reason was the rhetoric of Fran Drescher, the president of the actors’ union, who made one fiery speech after another following the strike, including one in which she denounced studio executives as “land barons of a medieval time.”“Eventually, the people break down the gates of Versailles,” Ms. Drescher said after the actors’ strike was called in July. “And then it’s over. We’re at that moment right now.”Ms. Drescher has been less vocal in recent weeks, however. Only a resolution with the actors will determine when tens of thousands of workers — including camera operators, makeup artists, prop makers, set dressers, lighting technicians, hairstylists, cinematographers — return to work.The actors’ union offered congratulations to the Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 screenwriters, in a statement on Sunday night, adding that it was eager to review the tentative agreement with the studios. Still, it said it remained “committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members.”With a tentative deal in hand, the Writers Guild suspended picketing. But protests by actors will begin again on Tuesday, after a break for Yom Kippur on Monday. “We need everyone on the line Tuesday-Friday,” the actress Frances Fisher, a member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, said on Sunday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Show us your #Solidarity!”Dozens of Writers Guild members vowed to support the actors. “I know there’s a huge sign of relief reverberating through the town right now, but it’s not over for any of us until SAG-AFTRA gets their deal,” Amy Berg, a Writers Guild strike captain, wrote on X.Their support will go only so far, however. Writers Guild negotiators were unsuccessful in receiving the contractual right to honor other unions’ picket lines; writers will be required to return to work, perhaps before a ratification vote is final.It has been 74 days since the actors’ union and representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, have talked. That will probably soon change given the high stakes of salvaging the 2024 theatrical box office, which will be in considerable jeopardy should Hollywood not be able to restart production within the next month. The TV production window for the remainder of the year is also closing, given the coming holidays.Restarting talks with the actors’ union is a bit more complicated than it sounds. For a start, SAG-AFTRA officials will need time to scrutinize the deal points achieved by the Writers Guild; those wins and compromises will inform a new bargaining strategy for the actors. Also, talks between studios and writers restarted only after leaders on both sides spent time back-channeling about the thorniest issues and seeing if there was a willingness to negotiate. Studios are likely to try the same strategy with the actors.The soonest that negotiations between actors and the studios could restart is next week, according to a person directly involved in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the strike.Neither SAG-AFTRA nor the studio alliance commented on Monday.“There’s tremendous pressure on both sides to get this done,” said Bobby Schwartz, a partner at Quinn Emanuel and a longtime entertainment lawyer who has represented several of the major studios. “The deal that the Writers Guild and the studios struck economically could have been worked out in May, June. It didn’t need to go this long. I think the membership of SAG-AFTRA is going to say we’ve been out of work for months, we want to go back to work, we don’t want to be the ones that are keeping everybody else on the sidelines.”The dual strikes by the writers and the actors — the first time that has happened since 1960 — have effectively shut down TV and film production for months. The fallout has been significant, both inside and outside the industry. California’s economy alone has lost more than $5 billion, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.Warner Bros. Discovery said this month that the impact from the labor disputes would reduce its adjusted earnings for the year by $300 million to $500 million. Additionally, share prices for other major media companies like Disney and Paramount have taken a hit in recent months.The industry took a meaningful step toward stabilization on Sunday night, though, with the tentative deal between the writers and studios all but ending a 146-day strike.The deal still needs to be approved by union leadership and ratified by rank-and-file screenwriters. “I’m waiting impatiently to see what the exact language is around A.I.,” said Joseph Vinciguerra, a Writers Guild member and a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.The approval vote by union leadership is expected on Tuesday.Though the fine print of the terms has not been released, the agreement has much of what the writers had demanded, including increases in compensation for streaming content, concessions from studios on minimum staffing for television shows and guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not encroach on writers’ credits and compensation.“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the Writers Guild’s negotiating committee said in an email to members.On Monday, President Biden released a statement applauding the deal, saying it would “allow writers to return to the important work of telling the stories of our nation, our world — and of all of us.”The prospective writers’ deal should provide a blueprint for the actors, since many of their demands are similar.Union leaders for the actors said their compensation levels, as well as their working conditions, were worsened by the rise of streaming. Like screenwriters, actors have been terrified by the prospects of artificial intelligence. They are worried that it could be used to create digital replicas of their likenesses — or that performances could be digitally altered — without payment or approval, and are seeking significant guardrails to protect against that.The actors, however, have had several demands that the studios balked at, including a revenue-sharing agreement for successful streaming shows. The actors have also asked for significant wage increases, including an 11 percent raise in the first year of a new contract. The studios last proposed a 5 percent raise.Though the entertainment industry had been bracing for a work stoppage by the writers going back to the beginning of the year, the actors’ uncharacteristic resolve this past summer caught studio executives off guard.The actors last went on strike in 1980. By comparison, the writers previously walked out in 2007 for 100 days.The first worrying sign came in June when more than 60,000 actors authorized a walkout with 98 percent of the vote — a margin that even eclipsed the writers’ strike authorization. Then, as bargaining began, the studios saw the actors’ list of demands. Union leaders handed over a list that totaled 48 pages, nearly triple the size of their asks during the last contract negotiations in 2020.While bargaining was going on, more than 1,000 actors, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Ben Stiller, signed a letter to guild leadership saying that “we are prepared to strike.” The union called for a strike a little more than two weeks later. More

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      Warner Bros. Suspends Deals With Top Show Creators

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      The move, which affected star writers like Mindy Kaling and J.J. Abrams, is an escalation of the standoff between Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America.When television and movie writers went on strike in May, studios quickly suspended certain first-look deals — mostly those for lesser-established writers. Star show creators like Mindy Kaling and J.J. Abrams were kept on the payroll. Worried about keeping them happy, even during a walkout, studios left their multimillion-dollar deals alone, shielding them from the pain of the strike.No more.In an escalation of the standoff between studios and the Writers Guild of America — it has entered its fifth month, with no end in sight — Warner Bros. moved late Wednesday to suspend deals with the 1 percent of television writers. That includes Ms. Kaling, a creator of the Max series “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” and Mr. Abrams, whose recent television efforts include “Duster,” a coming thriller set in the 1970s, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private suspension notices.Warner Bros. also suspended deals with Greg Berlanti (“Superman & Lois”) and Bill Lawrence (“Ted Lasso”), among others, the people said.A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. declined to comment. Representatives for the writers either declined to comment or did not return calls. A spokesman for the Writers Guild of America had no immediate response.Top writers have contractual protections that will ultimately enable them to receive all the compensation promised in their original deals. Warner Bros. is doing what is known as “suspend and extend,” according to the people briefed on the matter, meaning that the studio will halt payments for the duration of the strike — and then, when work resumes, extend the contracts by the amount of time they were suspended.The suspension of the A-lister deals suggests that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios, expects the strike to continue into the fall. (A representative for the studio alliance declined to comment.) Studio executives had signaled that Labor Day was an inflection point; the industry’s sitting idle beyond that date would have a severe impact on the 2024 release calendar, particularly for movies.J.J. Abrams’s deal was also suspended. The move can exert more pressure on the striking writers guild.Jerod Harris/Getty ImagesWarner Bros. Discovery said in a securities filing on Tuesday that the Hollywood strikes — tens of thousands of actors joined writers on picket lines in mid-July, the first time both unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960 — would negatively affect its 2023 earnings by up to $500 million.“We are trying to get this resolved in a way that’s really fair and everyone feels fairly treated,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, said at a Goldman Sachs event on Wednesday. “Having said that, in our guidance, we said that this would be resolved by September. And here we are in September. This is really a very unusual event — the last time it happened was 1960.”Suspending the deals of prominent writers is one way for the studios to try to put pressure on the Writers Guild. During the last writers’ strike, in 2007, a small group of showrunners agitated for union leadership to settle with the studios as the stalemate wore on. That strike lasted 100 days; the current strike is now at the 128-day mark.Studio officials and Writers Guild negotiators have not met formally since Aug. 23, when talks broke off for the second time and the companies publicly released their latest offer in an appeal to rank-and-file members. Studios were hoping the offer would look good enough for members to pressure their leaders to make a deal.But the move seemed to have the opposite effect, instilling the 11,500-member Writers Guild with renewed resolve to keep fighting. “The companies’ counteroffer is neither nothing, nor nearly enough,” guild leaders said in a note to members on Aug. 24. “We will continue to advocate for proposals that fully address our issues rather than accept half measures.”The studios defended their proposal as offering the highest wage increase to writers in more than three decades. The studios also said that they had offered “landmark protections” against artificial intelligence, and that they vowed to offer some degree of streaming viewership data to the guild, information that had previously been held under lock and key.Both the writers and the actors have called this moment “existential,” arguing that the streaming era has deteriorated their working conditions as well as their compensation levels.Nicole Sperling More