The Writers Guild’s key priorities for its upcoming contract talks are beginning to come into focus.

As speculation about a potential strike — which, if it took place, would be the first since the union picketed for 100 days in 2007-2008 — runs rampant across the industry, this week Guild leaders began informing members of their initial ideas for a bargaining agenda in meetings that took place on Saturday at the Writers Guild Theater and Wednesday at the Hollywood Palladium. (Additional meetings are set for Feb. 23 in Universal City and in New York City.) Some top, big-picture items on the agenda: setting minimum television writing staff sizes and strategies for gaining higher compensation for members.

Discussed at these meetings, insiders say, were possible proposals aimed at improving TV writer weekly pay, elevating residuals for TV writers, raising compensation for comedy/variety writers and universal span protection for all television writers (shielding more scribes from episodic compensation decreases when they work for prolonged periods on TV series with short seasons). Guild leaders discussed setting limits on how long a TV scribe can be kept in the roles of “staff writer” or “story editor,” increasing TV shows’ writing budgets and working to establish a minimum number of weeks for employment.

Establishing some kind of minimum writing staff size for television series was positioned as a potential negotiating “hill to die on,” say insiders.

Says one WGA member present at a meeting, “Show budgets exploded during the streaming boom but writers’ budgets didn’t. And what I like about the Guild’s approach in this negotiation is they seem fairly laser-focused on changing that.”

For feature writers, ideas that were on the table were fighting for mandatory two-step deals, higher residuals and a proposal focused on weekly pay.

The Guild typically presents their bargaining agenda to members and solicits feedback before officially presenting companies with their opening proposals, so their priorities are still in flux. At some point prior to the start of negotiations, members will also vote on a “pattern of demands,” described by the Guild as “general objectives” crafted by the negotiating committee with the help of Guild staff.

The WGA West declined to comment.

The meetings were described as lively, with at one point WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser (Julia) lauding the WGA’s “lion’s heart.”

“Every seat was filled and there were a few people standing up in the back because there were no seats left” says one who attended the first meeting. Another writer advises to avoid reading too much into that: “It’s been [like] that for literally every WGA meeting.”

Within the Guild, contract captains — member volunteers who communicate and coordinate with members during negotiations — have already made contact with some writers as the union buttresses its internal information and mobilization infrastructure ahead of talks. WGA West executive director David Young told the Los Angeles Times in 2007 during the Guild’s last strike that the captain system is “how you move 8,000 people into action.”

The WGA’s current contract is set to expire May 1.