The Hollywood Reporter
One of the entertainment industry’s top charities is reporting that requests for aid in Los Angeles tripled in the first month of the ongoing writers strike.
The Entertainment Community Fund, the nonprofit founded in 1882 that was formerly known as The Actors Fund, fielded around 629 calls for assistance in L.A. in May 2023 after the Writers Guild of America strike began May 2, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. That’s up from an average of around 200 calls per month in the period that preceded the work stoppage, which has not only halted union writing industrywide but also shut down a significant amount of physical production as it has stretched into its 10th week.
Nationally, the number of calls for the fund’s services doubled in the same period, going from 537 calls in April to 1,184 in May. (The nonprofit has not yet run its June numbers in full.) The fund’s services range from emergency financial grants to senior services to support groups, with the fund also providing affordable housing options for workers in the performing arts and entertainment industries like the upcoming Hollywood Arts Collective adjacent to Hollywood Boulevard.
As of June 30, the fund had disbursed over $1.1 million in financial aid to more than 675 workers in film and television amid the ongoing work stoppage. And according to the fund, the majority of applications for this financial assistance originated in cities in California, followed by Atlanta and New York.
In total, these figures paint a picture of an industry that was almost immediately affected when the Writers Guild of America called a strike on May 2. Usually, the fund’s director of the western region Keith McNutt says, the majority of requests for aid stemming from sudden crisis events like natural disasters or labor actions come several months after the fact, as people expend their savings and wait to ask for assistance until they are in dire need. During the 2007-08 writers strike, McNutt recalls in an interview with THR, this “balloon effect toward the end of the crisis” was at play, with the majority of calls for assistance occurring at the end of the 100-day strike. (In 2008 alone, the fund disbursed more than $1.6 million in financial aid.)
But in May 2023, just over three years after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to a standstill and put many out of work, “we started off right away with people immediately needing help,” McNutt says. “And I think that’s pretty telling about the financial situation people are facing.”
Emergency financial assistance has been the most requested resource since May 2, with mental health services coming in second, says McNutt. To meet the demand, the fund has reallocated staffers who don’t normally work on grants to expedite the financial assistance process and has highlighted workshops focused on helping industry workers cope with anxiety, focus on financial wellness during a work stoppage and find a job during a strike.
In the past few months, major crew union IATSE and the Pay Up Hollywood group, which is dedicated to industry support staffers like assistants, have announced they are setting up financial assistance funds with The Entertainment Community Fund. Overall, the fund has also received an uptick in donations during the strike, with $3.6 million raised so far (some of which has come from WGA heavyweights like Shonda Rhimes, J.J. Abrams and Adam McKay), to help fund the services. “And we expect to spend every penny of that on financial assistance in these coming months,” McNutt says.
In addition to the WGA strike, which shows no signs of stopping any time soon as the writers and employers have yet to get back to the bargaining table, the industry is now waiting to see whether the 160,000 members of the performers’ union SAG-AFTRA will also commence a work stoppage once their current film and television contract package extension expires on July 12.
If the writers strike lasts many more weeks, and/or if an actors strike erupts, the fund expects to see some changes in demand for particular services. Union members in the industry typically need to rack up a certain number of work hours to qualify for their labor organizations’ health insurance programs — and if they are out of work for a long period, they may not be able to meet that threshold. “There can be sort of a delayed crisis that happens six months down the road or whenever the quarterly hours are counted to qualify for union insurance,” McNutt says. “That’s where our insurance counseling program comes into play and probably some financial assistance there.”
At the very least, the labor instability seems poised to continue for some time, with more potentially difficult labor negotiations looming in 2024 for the IATSE and Teamsters unions. McNutt adds: “If there’s any good news, it’s that we have worked on so many crisis situations in our history, and especially over the last 20 years, that we’re ready to gear up when stuff like this happens.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
