World Harvest Food Bank Offers Free Groceries To Actors & Writers On Strike
While the world is hungry for new episodes, new seasons, and new shows, the creators of that content are simply just hungry. That’s why the World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles has announced that anyone holding a SAG-AFTRA or WGA card can access free groceries during the writers strike.
“All you have to do is come on in, show me your SAG card or WGA card, and that’s it. I’m going to hook you up with $300-$400 worth of groceries,” Glen Curado, founder of World Harvest, announced earlier this week. “As long as the shopping cart can hold it, you can have it.”
Unless you’re living under a rock or simply not a mainstream media individual, the writers strike has been ongoing since May 2 in an attempt to even the playing field for those wishing to receive fair residuals from streaming platforms. Many celebrities have been seen picketing on the front lines — Mandy Moore, Jason Sudeikis, Rosario Dawson, and many more — but the majority of protestors are from those less-than-familiar faces.
CNN reported that less than 13% of SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000 members earn the $26,470 annual minimum needed to qualify for union’s health insurance. If we consider that most of those writers live in Los Angeles, where the annual average cost of living is $46,632, or New York, where the annual average cost of living is around $68,000, it’s safe to say that their meager salaries aren’t cutting it by today’s standards.
We are moving into the age where streaming services are completely overshadowing network television shows, primarily in the realm of residuals. For most actors, they are paid a flat rate for their appearance on a television episode and further paid out residuals for every time that episode was replayed. Now that streaming has put the power of constant binge-watching in our hands, most streaming services have been skimping out on fair residual wages.
“If you were in a popular episode of a popular show, the income streams could last for quite some time,” actor Rod McLachlan of Blue Bloods fame told CNN. “You have almost 18 months on one level or another where you are receiving income that was significant enough to help you until the next time you did a network show.” In this new era of streaming, where episode playback is a much vaster gray area, residual pay has reached critically low levels.
While World Harvest was the first to offer assistance during this strike — which could last several more months — they almost certainly won’t be the last.
