Strike supporters celebrate after City of LA investigates tree trimmings at Universal Studios

Actors and writers are currently on strike and picketing during one of the hottest summers on record (which we should be prepared to start saying every year from now on), and it would seem that Universal Studios tried to utilize a rather underhand tactic regarding it. The City of Los Angeles, however, isn’t having it.

It was reported recently that Universal trimmed the trees outside their studio, with images of the streets sans their glorious mane of leaves popping up across social media. During the hottest summer on record in many places worldwide, including LA — actors and writers are still heading out onto the picket lines to ensure that productions cannot go ahead, and the shade from those trees would have been very welcome during this time.

The trimming of the trees appears to serve as an underhand tactic being deployed to make picketing as uncomfortable an experience as possible for those currently on strike. One issue that has now popped up is that they never had permission to do that in the first place. One TikTok user, musician, and actor, @justtellysa, has documented the current controversy surrounding these trees.

She pulled tweets from LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia, which state that an investigation was underway into why these trees were trimmed and if permission to do so was ever granted.

An update soon came that shared that no permission had been given, saying:

“With cooperation from the Bureau of Street Services, we have found that no tree trimming permits have been issued over the last three years for this location outside Universal Studios. Also, the City did not issue any tree trimming permits for the latest tree trimmings.”

However, as expected, Universal has its own version of why it did what it did, with a spokesperson telling Deadline:

“We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators, that was not our intention. In partnership with licensed arborists, we have pruned these trees annually at this time of year to ensure that the canopies are light ahead of the high wind season. We support the WGA and SAG’s right to demonstrate, and are working to provide some shade coverage. We continue to openly communicate with the labor leaders on-site to work together during this time.”

According to a more recent video from @justtellysa, picketers are having to call it at noon due to how severely hot it is. Though we don’t know if Universal will feel any repercussions for its actions, strikers are happy to know that the City, at least on this matter, is on their side.