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The Writer’s Guild of America has recently gone on strike, demanding more pay for writers in multiple Hollywood circles, including Disney’s. The strike, which has already begun disrupting some late-night television shows like Jimmy Kimmel’s, Jimmy Fallon’s, Stephen Colbert’s, and Seth Meyers’s, is the first of its kind in over a decade as the writers fight for pay equity. The last writers’ strike happened 15 years ago and went on for 100 days; it cost the local economy more than $2 billion.
Burbank Studios Watertower / Credit: Disney
The Writer’s Guild of America called for the strike a few hours before midnight PT on Tuesday after the WGA leaders reached an impasse with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. AMPTP is the trade association which represents more than 350 studios, networks, and streamers, including Disney, Netflix, and Amazon.
As reported by Insider, some of the issues that WGA expect addressed include “stagnating wages, rising living costs, the threat that AI could one day supplant writers and increasingly-common practices like “mini rooms” that undercut their work.”
Outside Paramount Studios, one writer carried a statement about Netflix’s disruption of the entertainment industry / Credit: Alison Brower/Business Insider
Related: Abigail Disney Calls Out Hollywood, and Disney, Amid Writers Strike
David H. Steinberg—a member of the Writers Guild of America, showrunner on Netflix’s “No Good Nick,” who was also the writer behind several “American Pie” films, spoke about the strike with Insider. “In 2007, we were fighting about DVD residual rates. It was like, ‘The writers want more money. We don’t have as much money as they think we do,'” he told Insider. “This time it’s like, ‘The writers want to have careers. They want to not have to drive for Uber.'”
The entrance to the Walt Disney Company Burbank, California / Credit: Disney
There have been protests outside companies, including Amazon, Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Some WGA members believe this is the only way forward. They shared, “We have to take it, because the studios are not going to give it to us out of the goodness of their hearts.”
Stay tuned to Disney Fanatic for further updates on this story and all other Disney news.
