Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced that movie and television writers have overwhelmingly approved a new three-year contract with major producers, according to media reports Wednesday.

WGA said more than 90 percent of 4,060 votes cast were in favor of the contract that runs through May 1, 2011. Guild President Patric Verrone called it "a new beginning for writers in the Digital Age."

A strike began on Nov. 5, 2007 over the dispute on residual payments to writers for work distributed via the new media like Internet. After about 100 days off the job, WGA negotiators reached a deal with the studios, and the writers returned to work on Feb. 13.

It seriously crippled U.S. television production, with more than 60 television shows shut and thousands out of work. Restaurants, taxicabs, hotels and other businesses saw their revenues decline.

But Hollywood's labor issues are not over. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) will soon begin its own negotiations with the AMPTP over a new contract, and the issues that will be addressed are the same as those over which writers and producers haggled.

The current SAG contract covering some 120,000 movie and TV performers comes up for renewal in June, and SAG leaders have vowed to take a hard line in the upcoming talks.

(Xinhua/Agencies February 27, 2008)