Arissa Chen '27
The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike ended on September 24, 2023, and the SAG-AFTRA strike is still continuing. This is the first time in 60 years that the WGA and SAG are striking together. These unions are made so the members are protected and are given fair pay for the work they do, which is why the strike started on May 2, 2023, and lasted 148 days.
Many major companies, such as Discovery-Warner and Paramount, had originally rejected the writers and refused to make any counteroffers. These companies were planning to wait for writers to lose their homes in October so the writers would be forced to take a bad deal. The writers going on strike led to them losing millions of dollars and having to negotiate a better working environment and contract.
The WGA was able to win a contract that included a minimum number of writers hired on every show, better pay for screenwriters, and restrictions on the use of AI for screenwriting. They were able to provide future generations of writers with more opportunities for a sustainable future.
Even though the WGA strike has ended, members of the WGA are still helping SAG-AFTRA writers with their strikes.
The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), has been on strike for over 100 days since July 14, 2023. SAG-AFTRA has been striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The AMPTP represents movie studios and television networks such as Discovery-Warner and Paramount (mentioned above), but also Netflix, Sony, Apple, and Disney.
When people think of actors, they think that the strike is just rich celebrities wanting more. This is far from the truth, however, because SAG-AFTRA is not made up of only rich actors. It has around 160,000 members, and less than the top 1% are making millions of dollars. The rest of the members are on strike so they can make a living with their jobs.
The contract between the actors and producers lasted for three years and expired in July of 2023. Since they failed to agree on a contract, SAG-AFTRA started a strike for the actors. All of the requests that they had requested were rejected, some of these being residual payments, protection against AI, and an increase in pay to help with inflation.
On October 12, the CEOs refused to agree with any of the requests, and the counteroffer was less than what they had originally proposed before the strike began.
Negotiations were resumed on October 24, 2023.
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