America is in the midst of a historic double strike in Hollywood.
The Writers’ Guild of America, a joint collaboration between labor unions WGA East and WGA West, called a strike for its writers on May 2 SAG-AFTRA, a union representing actors, performers, and other media professionals, followed soon after, starting a strike on July 13.
Both strikes are still ongoing, marking the first time in history that both unions have officially strikes together in 63 years since their original dual strike in 1960.
The strikes are directed at similar industry struggles for the WGA and SAG, particularly towards the demand for proper financial compensation and to limit the use of AI.
The WGA strike came about due to contractual disputes with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers, who rejected the WGA’s negotiations for higher residuals and a total pay increase to $429 million per year, instead offering a counterproposal of $86 million.
Both strikes also aim to ensure proper working conditions from unfair labor practices in the Hollywood industry. For writers, the WGA aims to secure a minimum staffing number of 6 for writers’ rooms to prevent the abuses of the “mini-room,” where studios assign teams of around Three to five people to write for new shows under severe crunch for low income.
Several writers have anonymously come forward with their stories to MBA 2023 detailing their experiences in these mini-rooms, which can be found on the WGA on Strike website’s Member Voices page.
For performers, SAG wants to regulate the use of self-taped auditions that became commonplace during the coronavirus pandemic, where actors are expected to film professional audition reels out of their own budget and personal schedule.
“You can get a call, and it’s 13 pages and it’s due tomorrow morning… And you wonder, ‘Are people even watching this? Why did you waste my time with this?’ That gets a little annoying.” actor Kevin Daniels said for a Variety article published June 4.
As part of the strike, SAG members will refrain from any film work, as well as public relation activities such as interviews, tours, award shows, for projects under studios blacklisted by the union.
WGA members will not submit any writing for blacklisted studios, attend any meetings or negotiations with these studios, or attend promotional events for projects released under these studios. Both unions have set up picket lines at various studios located across both Hollywood and New York to raise support for the strikes.
Similar concerns are echoed by the SAG’s call to action. With the advent of the media streaming model, its limitation of tighter episode scheduling has reduced sources of up-front money for actors. These financial struggles are worsened by the poor residuals of major studio contracts for actors.
Strikers have encouraged people to support the union members. The WGA and SAG websites have both called for people to educate themselves about the writers and actors’ demands and platform their voices through social media. The WGA and SAG have also requested that people donate to the unions’ respective strike funds among several other mutual aid funds for workers in the film and TV industry. These funds cover a variety of needs for the union members such as bills and supplies for the picket lines. Neither union has called for a boycott for the movies and TV shows of blacklisted studios.
