The Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, which started on May 2, reaches from coast to coast and brought 11,000 TV and film writers out on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

In New York City, WGA members picketed HBO and Amazon offices on Wednesday, May 10, in Manhattan’s midtown neighborhood of Hudson Yards. Union leaders said that after trying to negotiate with the AMPTP for weeks, there was no resolution. Members went out on strike after contract negotiations failed, meaning film and television productions came to a halt nationwide.

“Over the course of the negotiation, we explained how the companies’ business practices have slashed our compensation and residuals and undermined our working conditions,” the union wrote in a message announcing the strike to its members. “Our chief negotiator, as well as writers on the committee, made clear to the studios’ labor representatives that we are determined to achieve a new contract with fair pay that reflects the value of our contribution to company success and includes protections to ensure that writing survives as a sustainable profession.”

For the WGA, the main issues are that they want producers to be required to hire a minimum of 12 writers per TV show rather than the current number, which is currently set at six. Writers should receive more in residual pay, and there should be regulations for the composition of scripts via the use of artificial intelligence (AI), the union contends.

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Video streaming companies have also had a major impact on how WGA members get paid now.  With the major technological shifts brought on by streamers, “companies have leveraged the streaming transition to underpay writers, creating more precarious, lower-paid models for writers’ work,” the WGA said.

The AMPTP represents 350 broadcast television studios and video streaming services such as Netflix, HULU, Amazon, ABC, CBS, FOX, Apple TV, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount, and Sony. While the AMPTP remains in contention with the WGA, it had to sit down this week to negotiate a new contract with the Directors Guild of America (DGA). 

The DGA’s contract with the AMPTP is set to expire on June 30. Having both the DGA and WGA out on strike at the same time would severely cripple the nation’s broadcast production industry.

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Seton Hall University students have staged a sit-in outside the office of the school’s president under the banner of Protect AFAM to demand that the school direct more funding toward its Africana Studies (AFAM) program and hire up to four full-time faculty for its courses.

Protect AFAM claims they have asked to speak with the administration about how AFAM appears to be being defunded, but have not been given the opportunity to sit down with them. Rev. Dr. Forrest M. Pritchett, interim director of AFAM, wrote an open letter in support of the protests According to the school newspaper, The Setonian, he termed the students’ sit-in a “last option.”

On the Protect AFAM Instagram page (@protect.afam.shu), students can be seen speaking about the importance of promoting Black education. They also can be seen claiming that Seton Hall does not want to allow the students to protest and decrying the fact that school security guards have been photographing the students taking part in the protest. “You want to keep us heavily surveilled?” one student says into a microphone. “Seton Hall university, let it be known that every single security guard has told you how respectful we are, has told you how accommodating we are, has told you how peaceful we are! But you need to ensure the ‘safety’ of your Seton Hall community? The only thing unsafe was our voices.”The university said in a statement: “Seton Hall University enthusiastically supports the discipline of Africana Studies and underscores how vital it is for all our students, independent of their major field of study, to be able to learn about their (and other) cultures, histories, and identities.”

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