Hollywood Writers At Rally Say They’ll Win As Strike Reaches 50 Days

(LOS ANGELES) – With no end to the strike, nearly 1,000 Hollywood writers and allies marched and demonstrated in Los Angeles in favor of a new contract with studios that included payment guarantees and job security.

On Wednesday, speakers at the Writers Guild of America’s WGA Strong March and Rally for a Fair Contract emphasized the broad support for their cause demonstrated by other Hollywood unions — including actors negotiating their own contracts — and labor in general.

“We’re all in it together; we’re all fighting the same fight for a sustainable job in the face of corporate greed,” Adam Conover, a writer and member of the guild’s board and negotiating committee, addressed a crowd at the La Brea Tar Pits at the march’s conclusion. “We will win because they need us.” Writers are the ones who look blankly at a page. We create the characters, tell the stories, and write jokes our audiences like. They wouldn’t have anything without us.”

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing studios in discussions, had yet to restart talks since they broke out hours before the writers’ contract expired on May 1. The strike began a day later, with more and more factories shutting down as time passed writers.

With no end to the strike, nearly 1,000 Hollywood writers and allies marched and demonstrated in Los Angeles in favor of a new contract with studios that included payment guarantees and job security.

A similar deadline now looms for actresses, whose union, SAG-AFTRA, is negotiating a contract with the AMPTP that will expire on June 30. Members unanimously decided to authorize guild officials to initiate a strike if no agreement could be reached.

Streaming writers and its consequences are at the heart of the argument. According to the guild, writers’ share of that money has continuously declined even as series costs have grown.

The AMPTP claims that writers’ requests would necessitate keeping them on staff and paying them even when there is no work for them and that its contract proposals have been liberal.

“We are here for the sake of the profession we love,” writer Liz Alper said during the demonstration on Wednesday. “The field we work in, our customers, our sister unions in Hollywood, and all the workers across America who have suffered harm and lost their rights as citizens due to Wall Street and big tech.”

SOURCE – (AP)