Los Angeles city councilors passed a resolution Friday in support of the Writers Guild of America amid the ongoing writers’ strike.
Councilors Hugo Soto-Martínez and Katy Yaroslavsky were among those calling for studios and streamers to return to the negotiating table to meet writers’ demands.
“This is a fight for the future of Hollywood,” said Councilman Hugo Soto-Martínez, who represents most of Hollywood, including Netflix and Paramount. “We cannot allow these large companies to make $30 billion in profits over the past few years and then refuse to pay their workers a living wage.”
Writers have been on strike in Los Angeles and New York since early May after the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to agree on contract negotiations.
The full text of the resolution follows.
WHEREAS the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) (collectively WGA), collectively representing more than 11,500 motion picture and television writers nationwide, are currently out of contract and on strike; And
CONSIDERING that the reasonable requirements of the WGA have not been met for the major media companies that employ their members – including Disney, NBC Universal, Paramount, Netflix, Apple and Amazon; And
WHEREAS writers are facing the most extensive assault on their compensation and working conditions in a generation. Media companies have taken advantage of the industry’s transition to global streaming to underpay workers. As a result, writers do more work for less pay and with less job security; And
CONSIDERING that this erosion of writers’ wages and working conditions has occurred as their employers accumulated nearly $30 billion in entertainment corporate profits each year from 2017 to 2021; And
CONSIDERING that without writers the entertainment industry would have no stories to tell; And
CONSIDERING that Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the world and has a vested interest in the sustainability of that industry’s workforce; And
NOW, IT IS THEREFORE DECIDED that by the passage of this resolution, the Los Angeles City Council urges the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to come to the negotiating table and strike a fair deal with the workers of the WGA .
