HOLLYWOOD (CelebrityAccess) – Thousands of unionized Hollywood writers have left their desks for the picket line. The group who have said they haven’t been paid fairly in the era of streaming went on strike just after midnight today (May 2) – bringing TV production to a bright red stop.
The strike comes after negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing some of Hollywood’s prominent studios – failed to avert the first walkout in over 15 years. Those studios include Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony.
The Writers Guild of America board of directors, which includes West and East branches, voted unanimously to strike and said writers face an “existential crisis.”
“The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing,” the union said in a statement.
“From their refusal to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to the creation of a ‘day rate’ in comedy variety, to their stonewalling on free work for screenwriters and AI for all writers, they have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession.”
The AMPTP said in a statement that its offer included “generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals.”
According to the AMPTP, the main disagreement includes union proposals that would require companies to staff TV shows with a certain number of writers for a period of time, “whether needed or not.”
The strike comes when most streaming services have increased their monthly fees, yet companies such as Warner Bros., Amazon, Netflix and Disney have laid off thousands of employees.
Alex O’Keefe, one of the writers of the Hulu series The Bear, told NPR.org that the writers aren’t getting a fair cut of what studios are making. “I’m really grateful to work on a show about the everyday struggle that so many Americans are living through. But at the same time, I’ve seen that there’s complete lack of care towards our working conditions. It makes it so difficult to produce the content that makes them millions and millions of dollars.”
O’Keefe says even though The Bear was a hit, “I don’t get paid every time somebody watches it. I don’t get paid every time somebody says, ‘yes, chef.’ I don’t expect to make the majority of the profits or anything like that. I just added my spice. It was a whole operation to cook up that show. But we don’t receive the residuals the people associate with television shows.”
