Hundreds of WGA members lined up outside Netflix’s headquarters in Hollywood, marching and chanting in an effort to bring more attention to their strike. Among them was Adam Conover.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Conover, creator of HBO’s “The G Word” and host of truTV’s “Adam Ruins Everything.” “But, you know, this is my first action. There was a moment, you know, a week or two ago I was like, ‘I don’t want to go on strike! I want to do some other shit! You know, I want to… I’ve got a career I want to worry about. I’ve got a podcast, I’ve got videos to make, I want to do some TV shows. I don’t want to do that.’ None of us want to live here. Right?”
“We all really feel like the world is f-ked up. You know, like, there are things wrong in America, and we have an opportunity to go and actually fix one of them with our collective action.” ! Conover continued. “The guild is asking me to come here every day and picket for four hours. And if I do that, I can help stop the Teamster trucks from going into that building, and We can halt production and that will bring down strikes and that will bring them to the table, and that will cut employees off on their profits. And I really get to move boulder how good things are in America , Showing up here with a sign. It’s incredible!”
“And there’s going to be moments where it’s going to be mid-July heat, if we’re going to go that long,” Conover continued. “It’s going to rain on Thursday and we’re going out here and we’re going to be like, ‘I don’t feel like doing this today.’ But you know what? If we had not done this, the situation would have been worse. It would be even worse not to pursue a career as a writer. So the way I look at it, I come out here and I really try to focus on what an amazing opportunity this is to make a difference.
The WGA strike following contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), authorized through a vote by 97% of guild members in April, began Tuesday at midnight ET.
At issue, the guild is trying to stop the growth of what it describes as “a gig economy inside the union workforce,” specifically on streaming services. Among other things, the WGA wants to improve compensation for streamed TV shows and movies, and to stop the abuse of so-called mini-rooms, a recent practice in which writers with TV show pitches are actually paired with writers. The room needs to be assembled. The pay scales are massive, and entire seasons are scripted before the show gets the green light.
Watch Conover’s full interview above.
Additional reporting by Jeremy Fuster.
For all of TheWrap’s WGA strike coverage, click here.
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