On May 2, 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) started their own strike to support their 11,000 employees not receiving fair wages against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). This strike remains important to the writers because of the unfair job opportunities they claim to constantly come across, primarily in high-population cities such as New York, LA, Burbank and Atlanta.
To this day, writers receive minimal payment and actual writing tasks for major production companies according to the marketplace. This strike acts as a call to action for the numerous companies not paying their workers enough for the incredible work they do when writing entire movie and television scripts.
“I think the writers’ strike is fair because they’re fighting for better pay and overall rights. I think the only way this strike will end is once the writers receive their respective pay. The studios need to give their writers what they want and deserve if they really want this strike to end,” sophomore Madison Aldridge said.
So far, the strike pushed major film debut dates back and stopped projects from filming. Certain films and TV series continue to film in locations out of the US because of their contracts signed before the strikes. Actors of high-budget films such as Aubrey Plaza, Lin Manuel Miranda and others agreed to not promote any of their work while the strikes continued, due to the support they wished to show the writers.
While certain actors filmed with approval from their agencies, others agreed to show support by not accepting any work at all and physically joining the strikes. Writers expect to hold down jobs rather than lose them due to their agency’s policies. Multiple agencies let workers off of jobs at random to supply other writers with the same job.
“I believe that this strike is discouraging people from becoming writers for major companies. The actors supporting this are right to do so because they are standing up for what they believe in for the people they work with. I hope that in the end, studios will compromise to make a change in the writing industry,” sophomore Alyssa Mehta said.
After presenting a supposed final and only offer to WGA, studio heads continue to not provide the WGA with a fair proposition. Throughout the 114 days of WGA on strike, and even after joining forces with the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Film and Television (SAG-AFTRA) supporters still agree that the major studios of AMPTP still present no appropriate measures or accommodations for their writers. Although the proposals from AMPTP continue to change, writers from WGA hope that one day they will receive the desired fair job opportunities and pay they deserve.
