CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike

television dispute in the USA between November 2007 and February 2008

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ1046794
Source-derived summary

From November 5, 2007, to February 12, 2008, all 12,000 film and television screenwriters of the American labor unions Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), and Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) went on strike.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike primarily sought increased residual rates for DVD sales as well as jurisdiction over and residuals from new media. It was targeted at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a trade association representing the interests of 397 American film and television producers. The most influential of these were eleven corporations: CBS (Les Moonves), MGM (Harry E. Sloan), NBCUniversal (Jeff Zucker), The Weinstein Company (Harvey and Bob Weinstein), Lionsgate (Jon Feltheimer), News Corporation (Peter Chernin), Paramount Pictures (Brad Grey), Liberty Media/Starz (Chris McGurk), Sony Pictures (Michael Lynton), The Walt Disney Company (Bob Iger), and Warner Bros. (Barry Meyer).

Negotiators for the striking writers reached a tentative agreement on February 8, 2008, and the boards of both guilds unanimously approved the deal on February 10, 2008. Striking writers voted on February 12, 2008, on whether to lift the restraining order, with 92.5% voting to end the strike. On February 26, the WGA announced that the contract had been ratified with a 93.6% approval among WGA members. The Writers Guild later requested a court order seeking that the agreement be honored and implemented.

The guilds were on strike for 14 weeks and 2 days (100 days).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike” is television dispute in the USA between November 2007 and February 2008. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Writers, Guild and America, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007, 2008—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Writers, Guild and America is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “television dispute in the USA between November 2007 and February 2008” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1046794. The first chronological checks are 2007 and 2008.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike primary sources, 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike archive and Writers research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.