AOC Hits Picket Lines With Striking Actors & Writers In NYC: “How Many Private Jets Does David Zaslav Need?”

Sean Piccoli
·5 min read
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UPDATED with details and more quotes: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined striking writers and actors on a picket line outside the neighboring Manhattan offices of Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery on Monday morning, and caused as much of a stir as any celebrity spotted at Writers Guild of America or SAG-AFTRA demonstrations in New York City since early May.

Joined by AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gave strikers and their supporters a pep talk and spent about 40 minutes walking a picket line along a block of downtown Manhattan with as many as 200 other marchers. She paused for selfies, handshakes and brief hellos and accepted thanks from other picketers as reporters and photographers hovered nearby.

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“Frankly, while this is a fight against AI,” she told the cheering crowd, “more than AI, this is a fight against greed. This is a fight against Wall Street, and this is a fight against the endless pursuit of more wealth. How many private jets does David Zaslav need?”

The liberal congresswoman from Queens and vocal advocate for the working class isn’t the first elected official to walk WGA and SAG-AFTRA picket lines and lend her voice to their arguments against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. But she may be the most high-profile.

In an interview with Deadline, Ocasio-Cortez said there might conceivably be a role for elected officials in helping settle the strike, but only if the actors and writers want it.

“The most important actors here are workers, so it shouldn’t be about Congress acting on its own,” she said. “It should be us acting on behalf of our constituents. If SAG-AFTRA, WGA calls on Congress, then I think that’s something that we should absolutely consider. But until then we’ve got to get out of their way and let the workers do their thing.”

“We are in a hot labor summer right now,” Ocasio-Cortez told marchers, linking the writers’ and actors’ struggle to widespread labor unrest. “We have workers all across the country either currently on strike or gearing up to be on strike because at the end of the day we are all confronting the same challenge” — which the congresswoman described as “unprecedented concentration of wealth and corporate greed.”

Ocasio-Cortez said that film and television CEOs need a “a reality check” from unions “reminding them that if they leave the job, life goes on, but if we leave the job, everything comes to a halt.”

As she spoke, actor and writer Sandra Bernhard stood nearby, nodding in agreement and raising a fist with a cry of “Yeah!” when Ocasio-Cortez called New York City “the union town.”

Earlier, SAG-AFTRA and WGA member Bernhard told Deadline that with both of her unions on strike, “I’m certainly hoping that people come together and realize that everybody deserves a piece of the pie.

“It’s a huge business, it makes a lot of money,” she said, “and there’s no reason why a few at the top should be hoarding it and not spreading it out.”

Bernhard added that labor unions in general, not just hers, are at a “really pivotal moment for this country.” She and another actor walking the picket line on Monday, Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, both said that unions do more than just safeguard their workers’ rights.

“Without a union there is no middle class,” Abraham said. “And without a middle class there is no democracy.”

Shuler, who leads a labor umbrella group representing 12.5 million workers, first rallied with the WGA in New York in June.

On Monday she told Deadline that writers and actors striking in unison takes their fight to “another level” and increases public awareness of their campaign for pay increases, improved working conditions and limits on the studios’ use of artificial intelligence.

“No matter if we like it or not, celebrities really drive our culture,” Shuler said, adding, “There are a lot of workers on strike now, but who are people paying attention to? Hollywood. And that’s a good thing for all of us.”

It’s possible that the biggest celebrity at Monday’s rally was Ocasio-Cortez. A SAG-AFTRA representative, Linda Powell, told Deadline that the union — which does make political endorsements or contributions — welcomed her support, adding, “We welcome anyone who supports our cause.”

Powell, a union vice president and member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, also said that right now it’s the AMPTP — not the unions — that needs help getting back to the negotiating table.

“Their room is a very complicated room; there’s a lot of entities in there,” Powell said of the AMPTP. “And they need to find someone who can let them come together. Because we’re all together.”

Here are Ocasio-Cortez and Shuler walking the picket line today:

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