Not long after the Writers Guild of America’s strike started in May, Eugene Ramos began trying to walk the picket lines at least twice a week every week. On such occasions, he dons his sunglasses and baseball cap—equipment for “war,” he calls it—to combat the Los Angeles sunshine, heads to a studio’s entrance, and scribbles his name on a sign-in sheet before joining the rally.
But Ramos isn’t a member of the WGA or SAG-AFTRA (the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), the unions that are attempting to negotiate new contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents major studios’ positions regarding issues such as staff size, streaming residual payments, and artificial intelligence. He’s a writer, yes, but in animation. Most animated projects don’t count toward WGA membership—in part because of a long-standing industry impression that writing for animated projects takes less effort than writing for live action, a misconception that has historically left animation writers’ concerns overlooked or misunderstood. (The WGA did not respond to requests for comment.) Ramos, whose last gig was for Netflix’s The Dragon Prince, hopes that fact can change, especially if those like him support their colleagues now. “The way I look at it is I am fighting for my future,” he told me. “The guild’s fight, I felt, was my fight.”
In representing both actors and writers, the dual strike is advocating for a significant swath of Hollywood. But many in the entertainment business, like Ramos, have gone un-unionized or underrepresented—and others belong to organizations that cannot address their most pressing concerns. Some groups have not been recognized as actual unions allowed to bargain with employers. And some unions either represent different types of workers in the field (and thus have a broader mandate than some of its members might like) or aren’t powerful enough to contend with major studios. Over the past several weeks, I spoke with a wide range of industry professionals in such communities, most of whom expressed solidarity with their striking colleagues while also conveying dismay over how labor unions—or the groups they do belong to—aren’t yet working for them.
The Animation Guild (TAG), for instance, offers services through the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union representing crew members. But, as with the WGA, the rules that determine coverage are complex. Though TAG is a union, it represents workers in plenty of areas beyond writers, including storyboard artists and animation technicians; writers make up only a small percentage of its membership. And because production companies have a say in whether to hire unionized animation writers, some projects go without any union oversight at all. (Ramos, for example, isn’t a member of TAG, because the series he worked for did not sign an agreement with the union.) Meanwhile, support staff across the industry—writers’ assistants, production assistants, script coordinators, and more—can also apply for representation through IATSE, but only on a local level. And most documentary filmmakers, who are usually classified as independent contractors, don’t have a dedicated union exclusively representing their interests—they operate underneath a handful of alliances, advocacy groups, and guild memberships.
These workers could simply remain idle during the work stoppage—or even ignore the striking unions by crossing picket lines—but many have begun to transform the ongoing efforts into a greater movement across Hollywood. For some, the combined strike appears to have been galvanizing: Marvel’s in-house visual-effects artists voted unanimously this month to unionize. Reality-TV stars have been pushing for unscripted talent to form a collective bargaining unit. “People are saying, ‘We should be getting more active; we should be thinking of how this impacts our industry,’” Brian Newman, a film producer who works on both narrative and documentary projects, told me.
Others said they feel conflicted about the consequences of that broader campaign, especially as the WGA strike has stretched past 140 days (negotiations are scheduled to finally resume on Wednesday). Amanda Suarez, a writers’ assistant, has regularly gone picketing and engages in the growing online discussions that her fellow support staff have initiated about unionizing and officially joining the WGA. But her priority, as job opportunities have dwindled because of the strike-mandated work stoppage, is to figure out whether her career in Hollywood can ever stabilize. During other hiatuses, she’s kept herself afloat by working jobs tangential to script-writing, such as assisting on podcasts that interviewed talent promoting upcoming work. Now, however, she’s struggling to see a clear path for career advancement as the strikes—and the talk of unionizing—drag on. Although the WGA’s efforts could potentially lead to a contract that expands writing-staff sizes and encourages promotions—which could theoretically help Suarez ascend, over time, beyond an assistant position—she needs money to make it to the other side of the strike.
“When you are a writers’ assistant, you go into it knowing, like, the next step is staff writer, and I won’t be here long,” she said. “Unfortunately, with the way things are now, the support staff are in that position for much longer … This time around, this [strike] has affected both my film and television [work] and my side hustles. It’s like, ‘Should I even be entertaining this as a future?’ I flirt with the idea of going back to school and becoming a nurse every day.”
For those outside the striking unions who still want to support workers, showing solidarity is not a simple undertaking. Those unaffiliated with the WGA or SAG-AFTRA are allowed to continue working, but many have chosen to stop in case their projects—even at the pitch stage—benefit a studio looking to make up for lost content. Some of those who might otherwise choose to pursue such job opportunities feel that doing so could harm their career in the long term; in an industry built on connections, being seen as a scab is damaging for even the most established personalities. Others, especially crew members, cannot work or line up their next gigs, because productions have paused. For everyone I spoke with, the writers’ and actors’ efforts have been a reminder that every corner of the industry faces its own set of problems. Some have just begun their own attempts to find solutions; others have been pushing for better practices for years.
Whether the current strike is helping—or hindering—their ventures depends on whom you ask. Members of the documentary community, for example, told me they’re long used to operating without much support. If anything, they’re heartened to see how unified Hollywood workers’ efforts appear this time, and have thus been emboldened to keep pushing for their own union. “We can only do so much,” said Beth Levison, a documentary producer and a co-founder of the Documentary Producers Alliance, an advocacy group that offers guidelines for documentary business practices. “We’re all starting to look at ourselves and ask, ‘What could we be doing differently right now, and how could we be organizing?’”
Many of those in animation seem to feel similarly encouraged to reassess what they can push for—and potentially get—in Hollywood. For much of its history, the field has gone overlooked, and its writers say they faced shrinking writers’ rooms and low pay long before their live-action counterparts felt squeezed. “The concerns have already hit us, so we know what it’s like,” Shaene Siders, an animation writer-producer, told me. As part of a committee the WGA put together of nonunion members, Siders gave the guild advice on animation writers’ needs. The focus on labor practices in Hollywood, she added, has already helped further the animation writers’ efforts to be better recognized: In July, the WGA East announced that it would be considering adding animation writers to its ranks. (The guild did not respond to a request for an update.) Like Ramos, Siders has also joined the picket lines, and hopes that her show of support will be matched in the future by the WGA. Should the Animation Guild’s members choose to take any collective action of their own, she said, “we hope they’ll reciprocate.”
For other, smaller corners of the industry, the sort of representation that many seek for their specific needs has been elusive. Consider music supervisors, who oversee the selection and licensing of songs for visual entertainment and hire music editors. Although music editors are covered by IATSE, music supervisors have no bargaining unit of their own. After observing IATSE’s broader push in 2021 to improve working conditions, they worked closely with the union to put one together. But last year, the AMPTP rejected their request for recognition; as a result, a smaller group of music supervisors under contract with Netflix attempted to form a unit, only to be denied by the National Labor Relations Board in June.
These basic setbacks—being accepted as a union is an essential step to forming one—are illuminating. Netflix hires music supervisors as independent contractors, so the NLRB has determined that they’re ineligible for unionization, but many crew members in Hollywood can take on work as independent contractors while benefiting from union protection under IATSE. The problem for music supervisors, then, goes beyond finding a way to express their concerns. So far, they’re not even being seen as a body of workers that could use its own representation.
Hilary Staff, one of the music supervisors behind the push to unionize with IATSE’s help, told me that the dual strike has “made things difficult” in part because the WGA and SAG’s combined strength is a reminder of how neglected a position like hers can be. (In fact, she pointed out, most people she encounters on picket lines have no idea music supervisors do their jobs without union support.) “I think if they’re successful with this strike, that will be helpful for us when we return to the bargaining table … but [right now] we just can’t work,” she told me. “We don’t have insurance; we don’t have pensions … The last time I walked the picket line with some fellow supervisors, we were talking about how we’re still going to do whatever we can to fight like hell to get what we deserve, but I think the state of [how things are going] is a little bit discouraging.”
She’s not alone in feeling mixed about the moment. Daniel Thron, a visual-effects, or VFX, artist, told me he’s happy to see his colleagues at Marvel voting to unionize, but, he said, “I don’t get the sense there’s a big wave coming out of it yet” for people in his field. For too long, he explained, his pocket of the industry has worked an important but largely invisible job—visual effects, when done well, should be unnoticeable—shaped by studio demands yet done mostly on a contract basis, which can lead to variable rates and hours, depending on the project. (A growing VFX-focused group within IATSE exists, but workers are scattered among those directly employed by major studios, those who work freelance, and those who work at VFX houses that bid to take on projects.)
Throughout his career, Thron has depended on fellow VFX artists for opportunities and any sense of job security. As much as he supports the WGA and SAG strikes, he sees this moment less as a chance to determine how much studios should do for workers and more as a time for shifting focus away from studios entirely. “I think there’s a greater upset going on than anyone is really confronting … I don’t know why we’re negotiating with anybody over anything when we’re the ones who make the things,” he said. Maybe, he explained, the strikes can be about more than just getting major studios to meet workers’ demands—it can be about “creating a new kind of Hollywood that is creator-driven.”
That, of course, is far easier said than done—even for those who have representation in the industry. Sally Sue Lander, a first assistant director who has worked in Hollywood for more than three decades, told me that she and her friends in the business feel “very confused and lost.” As a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), which signed a new contract with the AMPTP in June and thus avoided a strike, she’s allowed to work—but hasn’t since February. The combined strike began in July, which put productions on pause and halted any gigs Lander had been hoping to begin.
As Lander observed the WGA’s and SAG-AFTRA’s persistence from afar, she grew dismayed by how quickly her own guild had reached a new agreement. Not much in Hollywood is sustainable at the moment, she realized; even the job she has done for more than 30 years has plateaued in compensation. “I’m very grateful to be a part of the guild,” she said, “but I do think it needs to modernize … I feel like the contract was a great contract for three years ago. What the DGA missed was the fact that this is part of a bigger labor movement in the country … You have to look at this as: Eventually there will be a new type of [entertainment] industry.”
So, on the 100th day of the WGA’s strike earlier last month, she joined the picket line for the first time. “I had felt like I didn’t deserve to be there, because my union made a deal,” Lander said. “However, we’re suffering just like they are.” Maybe, she reasoned, combining forces with the actors and writers will help all of their respective unions—and even those without representation—push for a new Hollywood rather than “re-create a past that will never happen again.” Besides, she explained, “I can’t just sit around anymore. I need to be a part of this.”