As strike nears 100 days, economic hardships mount for Hollywood writers
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LOS ANGELES - Gisselle Legere, a single mom who has written on shows including ABC's "Quantico" and NBC's "New Amsterdam," says she has about three months of savings left as the Hollywood writers strike nears 100 days.
Jimmy Clabots, 42, who recently joined the Writers Guild of America after getting hired to write a feature film he has yet to get paid for, is falling back on multiple side hustles - including working as a male escort.
Kimberly Barrante has been a guild member for eight years but was struggling even before the strike began. Now she's in the process of filing for bankruptcy.
The three Los Angeles-area residents are emblematic of many of the Hollywood writers who've been picketing on both coasts since the Writers Guild went on strike May 2 after not reaching an agreement with studios. For all the Hollywood success stories - writers who get big feature films made or develop popular TV shows - many more live a day-to-day struggle of writing on spec, selling pilots that never get made and taking meetings that go nowhere.
In an industry that has become even more unpredictable because of the success of streaming services and the threat of artificial intelligence, writers like these are more determined than ever to strike a deal that could guarantee more economic security, such as a boost in minimum compensation, measures to promote pay equity and more generous contributions to pension plans and health funds. But after the first talks between studios and the Writers Guild went nowhere last week, concerns are mounting about how long they can keep up their fight.
"Even with careful planning and drastic cuts in spending my emergency fund is running out faster than I'd like," Legere, who is deaf, wrote in a text message. "Being solely responsible for my daughter puts extra pressure on me . . . I lose sleep at night thinking about how we are one emergency expense away from real trouble."
Legere lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Burbank with her 9-year-old daughter, Ella. She has been fully committed to the strike, even when it means searching for child care so that she can join the picket lines.
"It's clear that this is a pivotal moment for this career's viability," Legere said. "But the sacrifices we writers are making are real."
After months during which no talks took place, Writers Guild leaders were invited to a meeting Friday with studio negotiators representing the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Studios are under increased pressure to make a deal after Hollywood's actors' unions also walked out in mid-July. It is the first joint strike by both unions in decades and has virtually brought Hollywood productions to a standstill at a time when studios would normally be ramping up for fall releases.
Yet the talks ended with little, if any, progress, according to a WGA press release, and no new negotiations were set. That means the strike will continue for now. The AMPTP, which represents the studios, has consistently disputed the WGA's version of events, declaring in a statement ahead of the talks that "our only playbook is getting people back to work.
Most members of the approximately 11,000-member Writers Guild wants the strike over with, but perhaps none so much as those writers whose careers were struggling to begin with and who have now spent months with no opportunity to pursue new projects or try to sell new scripts.
"To me, this fight is so important because it means the survival of my career, so yeah, I'm in it for the long haul," said Barrante, 37, who's in the process of declaring bankruptcy so that she doesn't lose her apartment. "Me and so many like me, we're determined. Even those of us who weren't working before, this means we weren't able to be out looking for work, it still means a huge sacrifice to us because we're putting our careers on hold. But that's how important it is."
Barrante said she hadn't worked in Hollywood for long before she discovered how common it was for producers or directors to ask her to essentially work free, asking for small changes in scripts that would end up requiring large-scale rewrites for which she received no compensation. That's an issue the WGA is attempting to address in the contract negotiations.
"It's death by a thousand notes, and suddenly what was supposed to be a fair wage for a writer on my skill level . . . they take advantage of the fact that you love this story and want it to get made," Barrante said.
According to the WGA, writers' pay has declined 4 percent overall over the last decade - 23 percent if adjusted for inflation. There's a widespread view among writers that the changes brought about by streaming services - such as smaller writing staffs working for shorter periods of time and earning lower residuals - have made it difficult, if not impossible, to earn a middle-class income as a working writer, unlike in decades past. Meanwhile, new threats are emerging, namely the advent of AI, which some writers and actors have come to view as an existential threat that could eliminate much of the work they do today - if studios get their way.
"I am angry that my time has been wasted, that this could have been solved much earlier on if the transition to the streaming model was more feasible," said Clabots, who has been working as a strike leader at the Universal lot, one of the many studios around L.A. where writers and now actors are picketing daily.
"This is an imploding system that is not going to last unless streaming somehow turns into a legacy media model that works," Clabots added.
While he can't work as a writer, Clabots has a dizzying array of side hustles, including teaching physical therapy, working as a script consultant, and "sober companioning," which involves helping former addicts stay clean or transition out of recovery units. And he works as a male escort for women, which he said can bring in as much as $8,000 to $10,000 on a good month.
Most Hollywood writers and actors don't have these kind of hustles to fall back on. Legere was an epidemiologist before becoming a TV writer, and she said that if the strike drags on past the three months she has left in her savings, she might have to begin to look for work in her previous field.
"I'm one of the lucky ones that has an alternative," Legere said. "But it's also been 10 years since I've worked as an epidemiologist, which poses its own challenges."
Writers Guild leaders are aware of the economic struggles afflicting some of their members and have created a "strike fund" that can provide no-interest or low-interest loans. Legere has applied for this assistance and is waiting to hear back.
Other members have acted on their own, including Joelle Garfinkel, 37, who established a program called Green Envelope that provides $100 grocery grants to members. Garfinkel said she sent money to a friend after receiving an unusually large residual check, and it took off from there and has now raised over $100,000 and distributed grants to more than 1,000 members and counting.
"To be honest, we all have real economic need at this point," Garfinkel said, pointing to crew members, lower-level writers and support staff "who are barely making enough to get by." Although $100 isn't much, "there's a clear need for it."
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