Not only are some studios demanding that showrunners continue their non-writing work during the writers strike—some are also apparently finding ways not to pay them.
Last week, studios under the corporate umbrellas of Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery sent a letter to showrunners employed by the companies expressing that they were still expected to complete non-writing services. At a meeting of showrunners on Saturday, one writer-producer told Deadline that they “are more united, more convinced than ever that there is no non-writing aspect of what we do.” On Sunday, Deadline reported that certain studios—including Warner Bros. Television, Universal Studio Group, CBS Studios and Disney Television Studios’ 20th Television and ABC Signature—had sent letters to showrunners suspending their overall deals.
David Simon, who created The Wire and wrote for HBO for decades afterward, was apparently one of them. On Monday, he tweeted a video from a WGA protest with the caption, “On the day that HBO called to suspend my deal after 25 years of writing television for them, I was doing the write thing.“
Simon, who did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, wasn’t the only prominent showrunner tweeting from the picket lines. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit showrunner Warren Leight noted that at least in one particular way, this year’s strike is already very different from the last one.
“Strangest thing to happen today on the line at Silvercup East,” Leight tweeted Monday. “A guy on a motorbike stops, motions one of us over, and pulls out two test tubes, filled with perfectly rolled joints. ‘Sativa. Good stuff. For you guys.’ Then he bikes off. That didn’t happen in 2007.”
At another Silvercup location, Poker Face writer Christine Boylan tweeted out a photo of a lunch sent to strikers courtesy of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Since the strike began, a number of prominent writers and showrunners have been speaking out about their working conditions and compensation. Abbott Elementary writer Brittany Nichols has discussed the broken residuals system, which she points out fails to compensate writers in proportion to their shows’ success. During a CNN interview last week, Adam Ruins Everything creator Adam Conover roasted David Zaslav—CEO of CNN owner Warner Bros. Discovery—for making the same amount that 10,000 writers are demanding “collectively.”
Other unions have also stepped in to bolster the WGA. On Monday, news broke that productions including Apple TV’s Severance had shut down in response to the walkout; in a celebratory tweet, Conover thanked the Teamsters and IATSE for helping the effort by honoring the WGA’s picket line. Countless actors, including Amanda Seyfried, Melanie Lynskey, Jennifer Coolidge, and more have also voiced their support.
The theme of the day among Hollywood workers, it seems, is solidarity. On Monday, Simon retweeted Hollywood Teamsters chief Lindsay Doughterty’s support for the WGA strike as well. “If the #WGAStrong, #DGA,
#SAGAFTRA, #IATSE and #TEAMSTERS manage to stick together for
this cycle, this recession-proof, profitable and too-greedy industry can be transformed,” he wrote.
That echoes another sentiment from writer and comedian Franchesca Ramsey, who tweeted last week that TV writers “are not the reason teachers are underpaid,” adding, “teachers are not the reason nurses are underpaid, nurses aren’t the reason assembly line workers are also underpaid.”
“[We] are not in competition with each other,“ she wrote—“everyone deserves a living wage.”
