'Pay up!:' Hollywood actors, writers team on picket lines
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[July 15, 2023]
By Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Striking Hollywood actors joined film and
television writers on picket lines for the first time in 63 years on
Friday, cheering and chanting outside major studios with calls for
higher streaming-era pay and curbs on use of artificial intelligence.
The twin strikes will add to the economic damage from the writers'
walkout that started on May 2, increasing the pressures facing the
multibillion-dollar media industry as it struggles with seismic changes
to its business.
In New York City and Los Angeles, actors marched outside the offices of
Netflix Inc, Paramount Global and other companies, voicing demands for
higher compensation for working-class actors and other gains.
"We're in an old contract for a new type of business and it’s just not
working for most people," actor Susan Sarandon said outside Warner Bros
Discovery offices in New York.
"The corporate greed that the studios have shown has made it very
difficult for people to have lives," she said.
Although the SAG-AFTRA ranks include the most famous, and wealthiest,
Hollywood movies stars, the picket lines on Friday were filled with less
familiar faces that make up the majority of the union's 160,000 members.
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"Most of us are middle class actors and writers, and we just want to be
able to do the things that everyone else has in life and own homes and
have families and pay for our lives," actor Caitlyn Knisely said outside
the palm tree-lined Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles.
Across town outside Netflix headquarters, picketers chanted "Netflix pay
up!"
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, former star of the "The Nanny" TV
show, joined the crowd and linked the actors' fight to a broader surge
in U.S. labor activity. Unions nationwide have been taking harder lines
in negotiations with companies including Amazon.com and Starbucks.
"If we don't take control of this situation from these greedy
megalomaniacs, we are all going to be in threat of losing our
livelihoods," Drescher said.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the
group that negotiates on behalf of Netflix, Walt Disney Co and other
studios, said it had offered significant increases in compensation to
SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America (WGA) members.
Sources close to studios also argue that the companies are facing a
challenging time. Many streaming services have yet to turn a profit
after spending billions of dollars on programming to try and attract
customers.
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![](../images/071523PIX/ent_a.21.jpg)
Striking Writers Guild of America (WGA)
and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) members walk the picket line during
their strike in New York City, U.S., July 14, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan
Mcdermid
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Jul/15/images/ads/current/graue_lda_preowned_071023.jpg) Disney, Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal
and Paramount each lost hundreds of millions of dollars from
streaming in the most recent quarter. At the same time, the rise of
online video has eroded television ad revenue as traditional TV
audiences shrink and movie ticket sales remain below pre-pandemic
levels.
The unions are seeking assurances that their jobs will not be
replaced by generative AI. SAG-AFTRA leaders said studios had
proposed paying actors for one day's work and using their digital
images in perpetuity.
The AMPTP said that characterization was false and that studios had
offered "groundbreaking" protections around AI use.
'EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK'
The WGA's work stoppage has rippled through California and beyond,
hitting caterers, prop suppliers and others who rely on Hollywood
productions. The economic damage is expected to spread with actors
now on the picket lines.
The writers' strike sent late-night television talk shows into
endless reruns, disrupted most production for the autumn TV season
and halted work on big-budget movies.
The actors' walkout will shut down the studios' remaining U.S.-based
productions of film and scripted television and hamper many overseas
shoots.
Outside the adjacent Sony and Amazon studio lots near Los Angeles,
picketers said they hoped the simultaneous strikes by actors and
writers would help speed a resolution.
"Everyone wants to work," said "L.A.'s Finest" actor Jason Fielders.
"I don't want to sit out here on the picket lines and sweat and not
get paid."
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski, Danielle Broadway Rollor Ross and
Omar Younis in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Marie-Louise
Gumuchian in London and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Lisa
Richwine; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Bill Berkrot)
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