A minute after midnight ET on May 2, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike after its old contract expired. After weeks of negotiations with a trade association that work on behalf of some of the biggest studios in Hollywood, a new agreement could not be reached. This is the second time the WGA has gone on strike, with the last time being in 2007.
The disagreement centers around the continued underpayment of writers within the WGA and the lack of appropriate residuals from studios for streaming programming. The WGA is also pushing to add protections around artificial intelligence that threaten and undermine what writers do and to end what amounts to day-to-day or gig-like work.