Support Entertainment Workers On The Strike Line

Background

Roughly 172,000 entertainment workers are currently striking, and many are walking picket lines across Los Angeles this summer during an historic heat wave. For the first time in over 60 years, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild/ American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are on strike at the same time, essentially halting entertainment production as members seek a fair contract. Picketers outside production giants like Amazon, CBS, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers are braving blistering conditions 5 days a week this summer in order to make their voices heard demanding higher wages, calling out unfair streaming compensation packages, the lack of regulation around the use of AI, and many more unjust grievances.

Regarding the timeline for a resolution, one studio executive was quoted as saying, “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” Right now, this strike is the front line of the labor movement.

The Plan

Community Solidarity Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that works to support organizations and campaigns in their work for justice and empowerment through event production, logistics management and donation gathering. As the entertainment industry, which is at the heart of Los Angeles, walks off the lot in the name of just and modernized working conditions, our organization is a grassroots partner to striking members in the struggle for workers' rights in 2023.

We are working alongside Strike Captains to mobilize and allocate community resources to support members on the line. With all eyes on Hollywood, consistently strong and well-populated picket lines are a crucial component to showing the media and studio bosses how much public support there is for workers' rights.

The Programs

We have partnered with local grocery stores as well as Best Food Trucks to bring weekly donations of water, sports drinks, fresh fruit, and lunch to a minimum of four picket lines for an initial period of 4 weeks, with the potential to go longer if the strikes continue.

Financial Goals

In order to sustain these efforts, we need to raise a minimum of $3200 per week. Here's how those numbers break down:

As this effort grows, we could aim to cover 10 separate strike lines, 5 days a week! But to get this off the ground, we need to start with the first week at the $3200 mark, and then the first month at a minimum $12,800. By that time, we hope to be exceeding our goals and growing the amount of coverage this effort can sustain.

Historical Significance

Since the mid-1800s, Los Angeles has been a Union Town. At that time, workers in professions such as baking, cigar making, metalworking, printing, and carpentry organized themselves to demand better conditions and fair wages from bosses. Filmmaking began to unionize in the 1890s when IATSE - the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees - formed in response to worker exploitation in that industry. Within a few short decades, the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) all took root in Hollywood in order to protect the labor and talent upon which filmmaking and entertainment are built. Today, those labor organizations are rising up again to protect the workers in a modernized entertainment industry.

Support the labor movement today in a uniquely Los Angeles way, by providing much needed sustenance to striking entertainment workers.

#WGA #SAGAFTRA #IATSE #Teamsters #HotLaborSummer #SolidarityProjects

Questions, media, to volunteer or drop off physical donations, contact us here: www.communitysolidarityproject.org