2 Long-Running Hollywood Strikes Took A Toll. What We Heard From Workers About The Impacts

During the Hollywood strikes, we asked you how you were making ends meet.

More than 100 people responded to our survey, and LAist interviewed dozens more. Many shared how the strikes’ effects on their finances put them in dire straits, while others scraped by with odd jobs. Some union members lost insurance, while others worried about banking enough hours after the strike to keep it.

We now have news of a tentative deal to end the SAG-AFTRA strike at just after midnight Wednesday, Nov. 8. Still, the effects of the work stoppages — even as the writers and actors are back on the job — will linger. We recently followed up with four people interviewed earlier in the year to learn how their situations have changed.

Losing home

Mario Colli-Moon, who was on LAist’s Retake podcast in April, is an IATSE 728 member and lighting technician. Before the strikes, his days were usually about hauling equipment, and making sure lights were turned on and positioned well. It’s the kind of job that’s also useful outside of the entertainment industry, but Colli-Moon wasn’t interested in leaving.

“Live events — you get there and you’re getting ready to go, and then all of a sudden, the thing happens, and then it’s over,” Colli-Moon said. “It’s all so exciting, but it’s not quite the same. I just have never wanted to do anything else.”

Preference wasn’t the only thing on Colli-Moon’s mind. While the strikes were going on, he got a few offers to work short jobs, but had to turn those down to heal a back injury.

While he’s been off work, his wife’s income has kept bills paid. They made it five months before hitting a wall. They just sold the Simi Valley home they purchased about three years ago.

“Frankly, we were living it right at the edge of the red line of the engine of our economic situation,” he said. “A month and a half ago, [my wife and I] both looked at each other and went, ‘oh no, we can’t sustain this.’”

At the time we spoke, Colli-Moon had just taken one of the first offers on the house. He and his wife now live in Orange County with family, where they expect to be until work resumes and they can find a new place to live closer to L.A. And that sale money? It’s going toward wiping out the debt they accrued during the strike and making a nest egg for a future home down payment.

“It doesn’t feel like a victory in any sense emotionally,” he said. “It is technically going to be financially good for us. I just would have preferred it to be the decision we wanted to make instead of the decision we were forced to make.”

The volatile industry prepared some

Kedra Dawkins is an art director in IATSE Local 800, the guild for people her in line of work. (IATSE didn’t go on strike this year). Her credits include big-name projects like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and American Horror Story. 

When Dawkins was on LAist’s entertainment podcast Retake in May (right after the writer’s guild strike began), being out of work wasn’t new to her. After she got sick last year she took time off to recover. And when she returned in January 2023, the entertainment industry was already slowing down.

“I had a job for a week that went down, I think in March, so I had four days of work on that show,” Dawkins said. “I’ve had like 17 days of work total for the past 12 months.”

Some years in this business can be better or worse than others, she says. But combined with her recovery time and the work stoppages, Dawkins sees this one as a “real pandemic year.” No union work came in, unlike when she worked some jobs during the height of COVID-19.

“This industry is volatile for me as well,” she said.

Dawkins says that since the strikes, friends have decided to leave the industry. Some created side businesses to bring in income, and others relied on family to stay afloat. She’s seen many people get by in between jobs with side gigs but hasn’t figured out yet what fits for her. Dawkins has gotten through this time by using savings and taking a couple of non-union gigs.

“More and more when I talk to people, the sentiment is that the film industry is our side gig and whatever else we do is the main gig,” Dawkins said.

Things were cut close. October was the first month her rent was late, but she was able to negotiate a lower rate on a new lease by about $200. Her health insurance is either gone or will be going away sometime in November.

For now, Dawkins isn’t sure if she’ll stay in L.A. or move to Atlanta, where she’s working on a SAG-waivered, low-budget thriller. But the potential for work through Atlanta’s new studio, Assembly, is attractive.

“I’ve been in this situation many times over the course of my career,” she said. “But I’m resilient and I’ve been working really hard to become successful in this career. I think that has me feeling optimistic about my future in this industry at this specific time.”

Stretching the budget

Chris Riddle is an assistant director who responded to LAist’s survey in July. Since then, he’s helped friends with short films and worked on SAG waiver projects. As for his living situation, he and his wife have a rent-controlled apartment — something they want to hold onto. At the time of our interview in October, he said the effects haven’t been terrible yet, but they did cut spending.

“We’re going out less. We’re looking for all the ways to see free movies. A little bit more intentional food planning to stretch our food budget,” he said. “We’ve [had] conversations about how much of our savings we want to get into and things like that.”

For Riddle to continue his assistant directing work, he needed actors and scripts, which wasn’t completely possible until both strikes ended. And while his family could’ve made it through the year financially, he says many in the industry have been facing challenges.

“It’s been really particularly hard on people who are just starting out,” he said. “The people who are really getting hit the hardest by this are the production assistants who are non-union.”

He thinks strikers did the right thing by fighting for a better deal, saying the studios have been “slowly hollowing out the value of the work we do, making it less and less of a career and more and more like a gig thing.”

He’s hopeful that the outcome will make the industry more sustainable for everyone through the next 10 years.

Possible early retirement

Cynthia Kershaw, an art department coordinator for film and TV, filled out LAist’s survey in July. She called herself the poster child for saving because she’s been preparing for a strike like this for quite some time.

Kershaw went through the writer’s guild strike in 2007, and some of that experience prepared her for this moment.

“I’m one of the very fortunate people that had to learn the hard way. The last strike — it was hard,” she said.

Kershaw is a SAG and IATSE member who’s about seven years away from retirement — a track she’s still on. But she’s considering an early retirement because the uncertainty of strikes and the industry in general has been tough. She’s especially concerned about AI in entertainment and that will affect production crew.

“I guess the short end of it is I wish I had a better plan B,” Kershaw said. “To be here at 19 years, trying to wait out a strike just so that I can get my pension, I’m like, ‘wow, I should have had something else up my sleeve.’”

Takeaways from effects

The need for planning is perhaps the largest takeaway people expressed. Kershaw, Colli-Moon, Riddle and Dawkins all saw the strikes as a needed intervention in a money-hungry industry. But it hasn’t come without personal costs.

There’s also the prospect of another union action down the line: IATSE will be negotiating with the AMPTP sometime next year.

It’s not clear yet how the union or entertainment CEOs will engage, but multiple IATSE members LAist spoke to are concerned the length of these strikes will lead to challenges when it’s their turn at the table.