The GEO stands in solidarity with the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG-AFTRA), who represent film and television writers and actors and who have been on strike for the last several months. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA are fighting to protect their members from pay cuts and worsening workplace conditions brought about by changes in technology, such as the rise of streaming platforms and AI. As profits for television and movie studios continue to rise, writers and actors are still fighting for a living wage.
While we as grad students mostly have very different jobs than Hollywood writers and actors, we empathize with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA in their struggle for pay increases that keep pace with inflation. We share their uncertainty in facing the impacts of new technologies on our working conditions. We, like the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, are all too familiar with suggestions that we should be content with a mediocre contract because we should be grateful to have a job in such a competitive field at all.
We wish the WGA and SAG-AFTRA success in their negotiations. If you’d like to financially support workers affected by the strike, you can donate to the Entertainment Community Fund here.
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