How Ongoing WGA, SAG Strikes Affect Writers, Actors and Studios
By Movieguide® Contributor
The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to affect the entertainment industry as negotiations remain in a stalemate.
“The AMPTP member companies are aligned and are negotiating together to reach a resolution. Any suggestion to the contrary is false,” the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said, according to Variety.
This came in response to the WGA’s call for individual studios that are part of the AMPTP to negotiate with WGA outside of the organization in hopes of reaching an agreement.
“In its statement earlier in the day, the WGA said that the AMPTP has refused to budge from its Aug. 11 offer. The AMPTP said that the guild has not yet responded on several issues, and said the guild has ‘remained entrenched’ in its demand for mandatory minimum staffing on TV shows,” Variety wrote.
The demands of the WGA include better protections against income loss due to the surge of AI, higher residual pay from streaming services and an increased allowance of writers per TV show.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav recently spoke at a Goldman Sachs‘ Communacopia + Technology Conference, where he urged both sides to work together to resolve the strike quickly.
“We’re a content company, we’re a storytelling company. We need to do everything we can to get people back to work,” Zaslav said. “Everybody is ready to get back to work, us in particular.”
Since the writers’ strike began in May, the company has lost an estimated $500 million, and a record number of those in the entertainment industry are facing eviction.
Organizations such as the Entertainment Community Fund and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Emergency Assistance Program have provided for those in the industry who are in financial need.
“Our director of social services in L.A. has been with us for 22 years, and she just told me this morning that she’s never seen this many eviction notices in this short of a time period in her 22 years here,” Keith McNutt, executive director of the ECF’s western region, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Actor David Baach, who has appeared in CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM and SILICON VALLEY, was initially extended a grace period when he fell behind on rent but, by August, had received an eviction notice.
“The strike has had a massive impact on my housing situation. I worked one day in May, and since then all the work has stopped,” Baach told THR. He received assistance through SAG-AFTRA and has applied for assistance through ECF.
“[I]t’s downright humbling as an adult to come to find you’ve reached the limit of your own self-sufficiency, and that it’s time to ask for help,” the actor said.
Movieguide® reported that the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plans (MPIPHP) is helping those in the industry during the strikes:
I’m trying to cope with this the best way I can,” Bill Bridges, a 54-year-old grip, said. “I’ve been in the film industry my entire adult life, and I can’t get ahead.”
To help with the lack of work, MPIPHP announced they would credit workers up to 201 hours to help them reach the 400-hour mark. MPIPHP has also allowed its members to withdraw a one-time “hardship withdrawal” from their retirement fund. This hardship withdrawal allows members to receive up to 20% of their contributed funds, up to $20,000.
“Each month that the strike goes on, people aren’t making qualifying hours,” said Mike Miller, who runs the West Coast office of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. “So it’s going to increase every month.”
These special allowances from MPIPHP are similar to the steps they took during the pandemic when the industry shut down.
- Content: +2Share:
- Content: +4