LOS ANGELES — Chelly grinned as he watched a mob of fellow actors picketing outside
Fifty-seven miles north in the high desert town of Palmdale, Calif., Jessie Moreno manned another picket line. This one had fewer people—about two dozen who had formed the first
The drivers picketed at several truck entrances outside the bright white and blue Amazon warehouse. The adjoining road was empty as the temperature neared 100 degrees, with winds gusting across the treeless landscape providing the smallest of reprieves. A lone UPS driver passed by and honked, hoisting his right fist in the air. The picketers cheered.
Chelly and Moreno have never met. They work different jobs in what seem like different worlds. And yet, they have much in common.
Fed-up workers across a sprawling range of industries are aligned like never before over fears of being displaced by artificial intelligence and the belief that corporations left them with a minuscule slice of the profits they made during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Los Angeles, where thousands have taken to the streets in recent weeks, shutting down sectors of the local economy, blowing up supply chains, and thrusting America’s second largest city into the white-hot center of a national strike wave.
The convergence of these walkouts has sparked a new level of coordination among unions and breathed fire into the rank and file, attracting workers who had never before been involved in organized labor and laying a blueprint for unions nationwide, according to interviews with more than two dozen workers, labor leaders, business owners, and policy makers across Los Angeles County.
The city has almost accidentally become a microcosm for worker unrest. Actors and writers—on strike simultaneously for the first time since 1960—have paralyzed Hollywood. Cleaners and cooks are sporadically picketing outside hotels, including the Beverly Hilton, the longtime venue of the Golden Globe Awards.
Thousands of UPS drivers could strike next week if the Teamsters rank and file don’t quickly approve a tentative agreement announced Tuesday, following in the footsteps of port workers who walked off the job last month. Los Angeles Unified School District teachers also went on strike this year, winning a 30% pay increase after more than 400,000 students were out of class for three days.
And in May, performers at a North Hollywood bar formed the first strippers’ union in the US in nearly three decades.
Companies say they’re being unfairly blamed for the rising cost of living while they try to find common ground with unions—a dominant source of worker angst that has also resulted in California having the highest rate of homelessness in the nation.
It remains to be seen whether these strikes can meaningfully alter the balance of power, but workers say they can feel a shift—both in energy and cooperation among a once-fragmented population of unions.
“We are both the tip of the spear and, I think, also the tip of the iceberg,” said Jon Sherman, a writer for the Emmy award-winning sitcom “Frasier.” “It’s not just the Writers Guild. It’s SAG-AFTRA. It’s people who work at UPS. It’s teachers. It’s hotel workers. It’s housekeepers. It’s janitors.”
“There’s a reason that all of these people are standing up and saying ‘hey, there’s something wrong,’” he said.
Rise of the Machines
Some of the most potent fears have to do with artificial intelligence, namely that production companies could use AI to harvest actors’ voices and likenesses, creating computer-generated versions that eventually replace humans.
The technology is already here. The
The fear is equally palpable for writers because AI programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are already powerful enough to create serviceable scripts.
“We’re in a new industrial revolution,” said Chelly, the mononymous actor who has appeared on the hit Netflix show “Never Have I Ever.” Plastered on the far side of the Netflix building, a billboard for the show peered down at the picket line.
“You can’t just say that no one is ever going to use AI, but as far as how it’s used, we just need to have a conversation about that and get to the right place so we can all get back to work,” he continued.
Talks between the unions and the film studios broke down earlier this month when the two sides couldn’t agree on a policy governing AI, one of the dominant contract issues. SAG-AFTRA, led by “The Nanny” star Fran Drescher, wants a guarantee for actors to be able to grant permission—and get paid—each time digital replicas are made.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said in a July 13 statement that its “groundbreaking” AI proposal would include performer consent to use their voice and likeness. But the actors worry that they would have to sign away their rights early in their career when they have little earning potential or leverage.
The studios’ counterproposal has “huge gaps in it that you could drive a Mack truck through—or a Teamster could drive a Mack truck through,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, said in an interview.
The Amazon drivers also sense threats from AI. The company monitors workers’ on their routes. They can be fired automatically if they don’t meet certain goals or get caught breaking protocol, in some cases without input from their direct employer.
Johnathon Ervin, the owner of Battle-Tested Strategies, a delivery contractor for Amazon based in Palmdale, said the company terminated at least two of his drivers and only told him after the fact. In one instance, a driver was let go after an internal camera allegedly caught him running two red lights. Ervin said he was told he had a week to provide proof that the worker didn’t commit the violations.
“Who really employed this person? Was it me, or was it Amazon?” asked Ervin, a chief master sergeant in the US Air Force Reserve. “Because me, I wouldn’t have fired him. He’s been with us from Day One. Sometimes people have bad days, yeah. Does that mean they’re terminated? No. You look at the whole person concept like we do in the Air Force.”
Ervin’s contract with Amazon was terminated April 14, 10 days before he voluntarily agreed to bargain with his workers’ new union of Amazon delivery drivers, the first of its kind in the US. Amazon says Ervin’s contract was ended because of poor performance; Ervin says the company knew his workers wanted to unionize and set out to sabotage him.
Ervin’s two-story office in Palmdale now sits empty. He keeps the air conditioning off on the first floor to save money. One room is strewn with boxes of supplies—cell phones, jumper cables, and other things he had to quickly remove from the Amazon warehouse when his contract was axed. He will probably have to sell the building, he said.
“We have the same AI struggle that Hollywood has,” Ervin said. “We have the same exact issues where a computer is pushing my folks to the level of exhaustion and they don’t want to show up to work.”
In a statement, Amazon spokeswoman Mary Kate Paradis said the monitoring technology is only used for safety and “claims that these cameras are intended for anything else are incorrect.”
Back on the scorching sidewalk, picketers began to pack up as the temperature hit triple digits. It was just after noon, and many had been there since midnight.
Heat is an ever-present enemy here and factors into working conditions.
“I had an experience where I drove in a van and my front and passenger window wouldn’t roll down and my AC didn’t work,” said Brandi Diaz, one of Ervin’s furloughed drivers.
That day, Diaz said, she shared her smartphone location with her mother and boyfriend in case she needed to be rescued. She said she complained to Amazon and was told she needed to meet her package quota—no excuses.
“I want to be able to come home to my kids at the end of the day,” Diaz said, explaining her decision to keep picketing. “I shouldn’t have to worry about passing out in the middle of the van and hoping somebody finds me.”
‘Invaluable Ally’
When Teamsters President Sean O’Brien held a rally outside of a UPS hub in downtown Los Angeles July 19, he was met by a sea of blue T-shirts.
They were not worn by Teamsters, but members of the Writers Guild of America West who came to support 340,000 UPS drivers and warehouse workers in their ongoing standoff with the company. UPS and the Teamsters struck a tentative deal Tuesday that would give wage increases to full- and part-time workers alike, which must be approved by union members to avoid a strike.
The writers that day outnumbered Teamsters at least 2 to 1, underscoring the close coordination taking place among local unions.
“The Hollywood entertainment industry has not been, you know, actively engaged on a level like we’ve seen now,” said Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “All the issues are similar, whether you’re in Hollywood or a hotel.”
The alliance among the Teamsters, actors, and writers began shortly after the writers went on strike May 2. Drivers stopped making deliveries to studios. Prop warehouse workers, animal trainers, mechanics, casting directors, and other workers represented by the Teamsters walked off the job.
“The Teamsters have been an invaluable ally in our current labor action by honoring our picket lines and helping us shut shows down,” said Calvin Starnes, a WGA strike captain at the Teamsters rally. “Without them we couldn’t have done it. We absolutely need to be here for them.”
While Teamsters and writers may have little in common in terms of day-to-day work, their struggles with their employers aren’t so different, Starnes said. Both groups haven’t shared in the wealth that the companies made during the pandemic—TV and movie studios through an increased demand for streaming and UPS though a surge of online ordering. Many writers have to take side jobs just to make rent, he said.
Anthony Goytia, a part-time worker at the UPS hub, displayed a pay stub on his smartphone to show he makes $17.85 an hour, about $2 less than what UPS says is the average for part-timers. He said he has been with the company eight years and works six days a week to make ends meet. Under the tentative agreement, he would make a minimum of $21 an hour, according to the Teamsters.
The company reported a $11.3 billion in adjusted earnings in 2022 as revenue hit $100 billion for the first time, up from $74 billion from before the pandemic in 2019.
Goytia and his co-workers are well aware of the company’s success. A shop steward with a tattoo of the Teamsters’ dual horse-head logo emblazoned on his chest, Goytia said he was hopeful O’Brien would get a better deal for him and other part-time workers. He boasts he might even get a tattoo of O’Brien’s face next to planned ink of Jimmy Hoffa flipping the bird.
“He’s from the rough streets of Boston, bro, I’m from the rough streets of East LA,” Goytia said. “He knows the struggle.”
UPS CEO Carol Tomé said the tentative deal reached Tuesday would “reward UPS’s full- and part-time employees with industry-leading pay and benefits while retaining the flexibility we need to stay competitive, serve our customers and keep our business strong.” Part-time workers currently make $20 an hour on average after 30 days, a company spokeswoman said, which is comparable to what competitors offer with health benefits included.
‘Pandemic Changed Everything’
Five miles north in Beverly Hills, more than a dozen hotel workers picketed outside the Waldorf Astoria on a recent Sunday, beating drums and wearing red Unite Here T-shirts. It was a jarring contrast to the valets helping guests in and out of black SUVs and men in white gloves opening crystal-handled doors to the hotel lobby, where modest rooms run $1,400 a night.
By Monday, the pickets had spread to other hotels including the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa in Orange County and the Hyatt Regency near Los Angeles International Airport.
The workers are demanding pay increases to keep up with inflation that has forced many to move to the far reaches of the Los Angeles metro area. Some say they have to commute more than an hour to work.
The workers, about 15,000 in total represented by Unite Here Local 11, have been staging on-and-off walkouts after a wider strike over the July 4 holiday. Members of the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA have showed up to lend support, and the actors’ bargaining committee moved hotels in the middle of negotiations to avoid crossing the picket line.
Some workers at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills say conditions have deteriorated over the past three years, with shortages of linens and cleaning products making day-to-day work a grueling endeavor.
“The pandemic changed everything,” said Lucero Ramirez, a housekeeper. “But now that there’s no more pandemic, it’s still the same thing. I think it’s even worse.”
Peter Hillan, a spokesman for the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, said lodgers are being blamed for rising costs when the problem actually lies with elected leaders.
“We fully agree—LA is expensive, no doubt,” Hillan said. “But for Unite Here to suggest it is solely the hotels’ fault is disingenuous at best.”
The Coordinated Bargaining Group, which represents 44 area hotels in negotiations, filed a charge against Unite Here Local 11 with the federal labor board this month, alleging that the union went on strike over issues that weren’t on the bargaining table.
Outside the Amazon studios in nearby Culver City, the writers picketed against changes to the pay structure from streaming services.
It is a concern even more pressing than AI. In traditional TV arrangements, writers get payments called “residuals” each time the show is syndicated, even years or decades after it first aired. That offers a steady stream of income for popular series. But streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are increasingly moving toward a front-end payment system, in which writers wouldn’t get additional money if their show hit it big.
That’s a big concern for writers like Sherman, who have relied on residuals to survive as they explore new projects.
“I still do see green envelopes from shows I’ve worked on,” said Sherman, whose credits also include “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
Even before “Frasier,” with less than five years in the field, Sherman was able to buy a house in Los Angeles when he was 29 years old. “That doesn’t exist for the guys and the women who are the age now that I was then,” he said.
Along the shady sidewalk, younger writers and actors marched in formation toward an uncertain future. One by one, they walked by a poster pasted on a large sidewalk utility box.
It read: “If you want to know how it all ends, PAY US!”
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catalina Camia at ccamia@bloombergindustry.com;
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