The strife that has been bubbling under the surface between America’s biggest production studios, film and television distributors, and the writers that work for them has finally reached a boiling point; for the first time in 15 years, the Writer’s Guild of America is officially on strike.
The announcement was made by the WGA West Twitter account late on Monday evening, saying that its board had approved strike action approved by a member vote – which takes effect on May 2 at 12:01 a.m.
The decision comes as protracted negotiations between the union and distributors such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount proved unfruitful. In essence, writers involved with the union as a whole are feeling unfairly compensated for their efforts in a drastically shifting production environment as streaming continues being adopted as the preferred method of content delivery.
The WGA has asserted that the responses given by the studios involved with the negotiations have been “wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers are facing,” and as such, picketing is set to begin tomorrow afternoon.
The last time a writer’s strike happened en masse was shortly before the advent of Netflix and its ilk, and in particular it resulted in many delays and interruptions to fan-favorite television shows and feature films, leading to shorter seasons and release date reshuffles. Depending on how long this strike goes for, we can undoubtedly expect similar after effects this time around, too.
If you’re after a deep dive as to how the entertainment industry is going to be affected by this strike, and why it is happening in the first place, we’ve got all of the information you need right here.
