Dispatches From The Picket Lines, Day 24: Sen. Gillibrand Addresses NY Crowd; In L.A., Lil Wayne Sends Burgers, A Robot Pickets & A Marching Band Plays Outside Warners & NBCU
deadline.comStriking film and television writers got a signal boost on Thursday from U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (d-NY), who spoke at a rally outside the East Coast offices of Paramount Global in the busy heart of Manhattan’s Times Square.
Wearing a “Writers Guild on strike” T-shirt under her blazer, New York’s junior senator to Democratic Majority Leader Charles Schumer told more than 100 picketers inside a barricaded sliver of sidewalk on the strike’s 24th day that theirs was “a righteous movement” and a “necessary” one. “It’s not right for writers to be so underpaid they can’t afford the cost of living.
It’s not right that writers are paid so little that they can’t afford to live in the greatest city in the co — in the world,” Gillibrand said, briefly checking herself in order to raise New York City’s stature.
In the fourth week since contract talks collapsed between the studios and the Writers Guild of America, Gillibrand became one of the highest-profile elected officials to openly side with the writers and criticize Hollywood executives, who — like unionized actors, directors and writers — have historically given the majority of their campaign donations and strategic and moral support to Democrats.
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