Striking Hollywood actors and writers escalated their war with the studios this week, participating in a joint march in Los Angeles that clogged the streets of the Hollywood neighborhood as protestors marched Tuesday from Netflix offices to the historic Paramount lot.
Meanwhile, the actors union fired off an acrimonious salvo, accusing the studios and streamers of refusing to return to the bargaining table, with SAG-AFTRA leadership calling executives “petty tyrants.”
The escalation is the latest sign that the historic strikes that have brought most of the industry to a standstill won’t be resolved any time soon. With little leverage to work with, and even less public goodwill, actors and writers are resorting to publicity tactics to gain attention and move the dial in their favor.
But studios and streamers don’t appear to be in the mood to budge from their positions and seem to be waging a war of attrition on the strikers, many of whom are burning through their personal savings.
“They are punishing us for exercising our legal right to strike,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher wrote in the latest issue of the guild’s magazine for members, according to a Deadline report. “They are not land barons in feudal times, and we are not their serfs. How dare they think we are less than an enemy camp they need to step on in their insatiable appetite for greed?”
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the guild’s national executive director and chief negotiator, accused studios of blatantly contemptuous behavior.
“From the dismissive statements to the press to the disrespect of members during the negotiating process to the now-infamous tree-trimming and ripping up of sidewalks in front of Universal Studios to make picketing harder and less safe, studio bosses have been behaving like petty tyrants rather than partners in creating great entertainment,” he wrote.
There are already signs that patience is running out and union ra-ra is wearing thin on striking workers and the thousands of below-the-line crew members who have been forced into longterm unemployment.
Both Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore have announced the resumption of their TV talk shows, minus any writers. Their decisions have provoked the ire of guild members, who are calling them scabs and traitors.
Meanwhile a group of prominent TV showrunners is pressuring Writers Guild of America leaders to meet with the studios in an attempt to reach a solution, following a bitter falling out, according to a New York Times report.
But it remains unclear how much sway such writers as Kenya Barris of ABC’s black-ish , Noah Hawley of FX’s Fargo, and Dan Fogelman of NBC’s This Is Us will have over guild leaders.
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