Why Hollywood’s Rank and File Are Striking

FEATURING VARIOUS WRITERS AND ACTORS - Hundreds of thousands of creative workers in the film and television industry are currently flexing their labor power. For the first time in more than 60 years, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, are striking simultaneously. Filming has halted mid-production and press junkets are on hold. At the heart of the unions’ conflict with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents all the major entertainment media corporations, are the issues of royalty payments—known as residuals—and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). On Wednesday July 26th, Rising Up host Sonali Kolhatkar spent the morning at a picket line with striking writers and actors in Burbank, California, outside Disney headquarters and asked them why their unions were striking and how Hollywood workers are struggling even as corporate studios are thriving.