Writers’ strike: Has the gig economy come for Hollywood?
From a distance, it sounds like a street party. Outside one of Hollywood’s oldest studios, people are cheering. A speaker blares Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City.” Passing cars toot appreciative horns.
Up close, it becomes apparent this isn’t a party. It’s a picket line. When screenwriters across America went on strike on Tuesday, they started marshaling outside entertainment headquarters such as Amazon’s film and television division here at Culver Studios. The upbeat protesters, wearing sunglasses and “Writers Guild of America” T-shirts, chant “union power” while parading around the colonial-style building where “Gone with the Wind” was filmed. These writers claim that studios are turning their profession into a gig economy consisting of short-term jobs with low pay and even uncompensated work. As one striker’s sign puts it, “Hey Amazon, free delivery is your job, not ours!”
“What’s happening right now is just abject disrespect of writers,” says K.C. Scott, a scribe on the Apple TV+ show “Physical,” whose boombox is playing Bob Marley
