Last week, Sharon and I travelled to Montreal to represent the Writers’ Guild of Ireland at the AGM of the International Affiliation of Writers’ Guilds. The IAWG is made up of large and small Guilds from all around the world – the USA, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, France, India, Israel and ourselves.. And the AGM is always a fantastic opportunity for us to share issues of global concern, to connect with our sister Guilds from around the world, and to learn from each other so that we can better serve all our members.

This year, of course, we met just after the conclusion of the WGA strike, so we got to hear first hand about their negotiations, and the details of the deal that was eventually struck. We also discussed issues like Collective Bargaining, Generative AI, how we globally work to ensure that the streamers and SVOD services don’t exploit writers.

As a small Guild, in a relatively small market, it’s so valuable for us to be at the table, and to be part of this global conversation so that we can represent you all as writers in the best way we can. On a personal level, I was honoured to be elected to serve as Chair of the IAWG’s working group, the PRG (policy and research group) and look forward to serving ithe International Affiliation in that capacity over the next few years.