Picket lines in Hollywood as writers go on strike

LOS ANGELES

Picket lines formed outside studios in Los Angeles and New York on May 2 as thousands of writers downed tools in a strike over pay and conditions in the streaming era.

Late-night shows fronted by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Myers and Stephen Colbert were expected to be the first casualties as 11,000 union members walked off the job for the first time in 15 years.

“Writers are not being paid enough,” Louis Jones told AFP outside Netflix in Los Angeles.

“Writers are working long hours, and I’m not seeing a lot of residuals on recurrent episodes on TV.” 

The strike, which could hit television series and movies scheduled for release later this year if it continues, came after talks between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the studios’ Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), collapsed.

The last time Hollywood writers laid down their pens, in 2007, the strike lasted 100 days, and cost LA’s entertainment economy around $2 billion.

This time, the two sides are clashing as writers demand higher pay, minimum guarantees of stable employment and a greater share of profits from the boom in streaming, while studios say they must cut costs due to economic pressures.“What’s currently at issue here is that streaming has completely changed the media landscape,” Emmy Award winning writer Danny Strong told AFP in New York.

“There are fewer distribution outlets, and they’re controlled by fewer people, and so we’ve lost a greater share of our income.“Writers create everything that you see,” said Strong, who wrote and directed Hulu’s “Dopesick.”

“We’re the very foundation for the content that people love and enjoy and that our employers profit off of.” 

Late night hosts Colbert and Jimmy Fallon - both members of the guild - backed the writers, with Colbert saying their demands were “not unreasonable.”

Fallon told AFP at the Met Gala in New York: “I support my writers, we have a lot of staff and crew that will be affected by this, but they got to get a fair deal.”

And “Abbot Elementary” creator and star Quinta Brunson, said her fellow guild members had her full backing.

“No one wants this strike... I hope that we’re able to rectify this, whatever that means,” she said.