By Jorge Garcia
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Unions representing teachers, truck drivers and other workers who will soon head to the bargaining table gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Friday to support film and television writers in Hollywood strike.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) began a work stoppage on May 2 after failing to reach an agreement for higher salaries with media companies including Walt Disney Co, Netflix Inc and Warner Bros Discovery Inc.
On Friday, a few hundred union members from the tourism and hospitality industries, teachers, logisticians and civil servants gathered in downtown Los Angeles to demonstrate their unity. Participating unions represented more than 200,000 workers whose collective agreements were also due to expire in 2023, organizers said.
“It’s going to be a hot labor summer,” Lorena Gonzalez, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation, told the crowd. “It’s your strength to stick together that will ensure that the next generation of workers will have the ability to live.”
Organizers said unions had universal demands for living wages amid rising food, housing and transport costs.
Writer Danielle Roderick said she hoped writers would lead a movement of “not everyone taking it”.
“Everyone feels like they’re being eaten alive in some way,” said Roderick, who attended the rally with her husband, also a writer, and two children.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents major studios, said it was offering “generous” pay increases for writers. No new discussions between the two parties are planned.
(Reporting by Jorge Garcia and Lisa Richwine; Editing by Tom Hogue)