Writer Gary Phillips traces the history of the Writers Guild, the militancy of Hollywood unions, beginning with the writers, the difference between the writers and actors, and why the actors remain on strike.
The singer-songwriter met the demands of striking SAG-AFTRA, including streaming residuals, to release The Eras Tour documentary.
While guild members would love to get back to work, the one thing they’re not going to do after months on the picket lines, whatever the studio’s strategic game plan when the strike began, is roll over and play dead.
Hollywood glamour doesn't pay the rent. Many of the people who actually make the movies and television shows we love so much — whose hard work creates stories, sound stages, spectacular costumes, and so much more — are barely scraping by.
The unions raised the need for antitrust enforcement, and the Biden administration’s top antitrust cops paid attention. The one-two punch of simultaneous WGA and SAG strikes, for the first time in 60 years, has stalled out virtually all productions.
The American movie industry has been one of the most consistently unionized sectors of the economy since the 1930s — but to achieve that, workers had to overcome “the iron fist of the moguls” and organized crime, says historian Gerald Horne
Jeopardy! is not like other game shows. According to the WGA, “Jeopardy is produced by a struck company...Anyone participating in a Jeopardy production would be crossing a picket line comprised of Jeopardy writers who wrote the clues.”
Extras - they fear the general public thinks all actors get paid handsomely and are doing it for the love of the craft, almost as a hobby. Yet in most cases, it's their only job, and they need to qualify for health insurance, pay rent or a mortgage,
"The Nanny" speaks on land barons, new business models and why she is the right person for the job. “I think that the whole world is looking at us right now, because human beings in all different walks of life are being replaced by robots.”
160,000 actors, members of SAG-AFTRA, are shutting down all industry filming and voice-over production at midnight tonight. They are joining the 11,000 writers, members of the Writers Guild, who have been on strike since May 2.
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