Exclusive: Writers Guild of America Leaders Warn of Shrinking Hollywood Middle Class as Writers Strike

Hollywood went on shut down this week when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) enacted an industry-wide strike on both coasts after negotiations failed with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

Breitbart News attended the second day of picketing this week to hear from the writers on exactly what they hoped to achieve by striking and what they fear most if the major studios do not meet their demands. While fears of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and unfair wages were chief among their concerns, the writers had an even greater degree of fear about a disappearing middle class within the union.

Speaking with WGA board member Dailyn Rodriguez, whose credits include Ugly Betty and The Lincoln Lawyer, Breitbart News learned that the writers feel they will soon have no ability to work in the industry and live in a city like Los Angeles, making a career close to impossible.

“What I’m hearing from membership — the younger writers that are coming into the business that can’t make a living, can’t pay their rent — these short orders, shorter weeks for less pay, for scale, is causing us to lose our middle class,” said Dailyn.

“So that’s really the problem that we’re looking at. The streamers have just condensed a business that used be like, you would work for a 22-episode order, which were weeks on end, and you could make a living, and now people aren’t able to make a living,” she added.

“So you would say you are trying to fight for the WGA’s middle class?” asked Breitbart News.

“The middle class and the lower middle class,” she responded.

Paul Bois / Breitbart News

WGA Strike Captain Liz Ellis, who served as a script consultant on Law & Order: Organized Crime, had similar concerns about a shrinking middle class in the WGA and the inability to live in Los Angeles. She even admitted that other writers like herself have to work day-to-day jobs just to make ends-meet between writing gigs.

“People who have been at this less time, like myself, most of us have jobs in between shows, which again, we are always developing, we’re always doing the work, and betting on ourselves that we’ll be able to get the next job and get paid again. But most of us are going to [regular work].”

“I’ve been a barista, I’ve been a copywriter, and ideally, because you are working full-time, developing and pitching yourself and writing samples, ideally you would be able to make it through paying rent in those in-between times, and that’s not really happening,” she added. “There’s people making a lot of money, but there’s a lot of people not making enough to get by.”

Paul Bois / Breitbart News

Another WGA Strike Captain, who also serves on the board of the WGA, told Breitbart News that the writing rooms have “gotten smaller and smaller” while the middle-class writers get paid minimums for a few weeks of work.

“It’s become a business where there’s a very small percentage of the writers who make a lot of money and the middle class and the most vulnerable members, the newest members, are not able to make a living.”

Paul Bois / Breitbart News

Some striking writers have further claimed that streaming services have hollowed out the work to such a degree that they now feel like Uber drivers in a gig economy rather than creatives with a career that supports them.

“The streamers don’t care about anything, they think we’re Uber drivers: ‘Come in, do your job, go home, that’s great. You’re free,’” Marjorie David, the vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West, told The Daily Beast.

“Not good. We don’t want to be free from health and pension. We don’t want to be free from paying our rent. We don’t want to be free from buying a house or sending our kids to school or anything like that,” she added.

Movie writer Ed Horowitz outright told people to show support by canceling their subscription services, fearing that the studios could outlast the strike by playing up past content.

“Cancel your subscriptions,” said Horowitz. “If people out there started canceling their subscriptions and not watching stuff that is on streamers, that would have a huge impact, if people were to do that in numbers. If enough people cancel their subscriptions—even in the short run in solidarity—that will actually make a statement.”

Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed on Tubi, Google Play, YouTube Movies, or VIMEO On Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.