When I graduated from Murray State University with a public relations degree in 2019, the last place I expected to be in June 2023 was on a picket line outside of Disney’s gates. Surrounded by thousands of television and film writers, we held our signs high. We marched and we cried and we sang and we laughed and we made lifelong friends along the way.
While I decided to ride out the bulk of the strike back in Murray in an effort to save money, I spent a few days hoisting my sign up in the air while doing mile-long laps around the Disney lot in Burbank. While nobody wanted to be there, we all knew we had to be there. So, we made the most out of it. We had fun and built a community. Because at some point, we all decided that if these billion-dollar corporations didn’t care about us, we had to care about each other, and care loudly.
My role in this WGA strike was a peculiar one. As support staff in Hollywood, most of us are not in the union. (SAG was also on strike at the same time, the first time both unions were on strike together in over 70 years.) While many businesses in LA and New York, where the WGA East is headquartered, set up discounts and freebies for card carrying union members, I noticed myself and other production assistants starting to feel left out. Here we were, on the same picket lines, missing paycheck after paycheck, being forgotten about.
It didn’t take long for that to start changing. Support programs started to pop up. Assistants out of work could apply for grants, rent assistance, grocery gift cards (of which I received several and am still using them—something I am so grateful for) and even emergency medical aid because while we weren’t being paid, we’d also all lost our insurance.
The WGA strike lasted 148 days. Almost half a year’s worth of wages we would not see. While I consider myself extremely lucky to have spent the strike knowing I had a job and a steady paycheck to come back to, others didn’t and still don’t have that comfort. I saw many people forced to leave Los Angeles. The cost of living in this city is outrageous, and the unemployment benefits most of us were receiving don’t come close to being a livable wage. We were told to celebrate because our future as screenwriters just got so much brighter. But what I think didn’t translate was the promise of higher wages in 10 years didn’t quell the nerves of paying next month’s rent and putting gas in the car.
Now that Hollywood is back to work, it’s humbling to look back and really see what we were forced to endure. I still have friends desperately looking for jobs. I still have friends choosing to leave LA, some choosing to leave the industry altogether.
The future is scary. It’s tough in Hollywood right now, and let’s be real, it always was. But those 148 days did not go to waste. Things are changing… and I’m proud to say that I was there to witness it firsthand.
About the Author:
Jordyn Rowland (PR 2019) is currently the Writer’s Production Assistant (WPA) at Shondaland Productions, creator/producer of the hit television series Grey’s Anatomy. The show is produced in association with The Mark Gordon Company and ABC Studios (formerly Touchstone Television). Rowland has been working on the show’s production team since season 18. She has also written three of her own pilot scripts for new streaming/television series and is in the process of shopping them to the networks.
