Duncan Freeman at The Chief Leader reports the Strike by Hollywood Actors and Writers threatens to have significant ripple effects in New York City, where industry stages, sound studios and production lots have shut down, some having closed even before Performers joined the Writers on the picket lines last month.  The Daily Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Problem with Jon Stewart, Saturday Night Live - all are produced in the City and all have gone dark, leaving Camera Operators, Technicians, Caterers, Make-Up Artists, Drivers, Stylists and others scrambling for work, filing for unemployment or, likely, both.  Consider, too, the hundreds of feature films and episodic TV shows filmed every year in New York City.  More than 185,000 people in the City were employed either directly in the Entertainment Industry or in businesses supporting Film and TV Productions in 2019 and represented nearly 4% of all City jobs, according to a study by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.  Altogether, they were paid about $18.1 billion and accounted for some $81.6 billion in economic output that year, when Motion Picture Productions reached an all-time high, the 2021 study noted.  “The stakes for the City of New York are high. The Film and Television Industry is a core driver of the New York City economy,” Lowell Peterson, who serves as the Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE), said during a meeting of the City Council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor that was held last week, which convened chiefly to signal the Council’s support for the Strikers.  That same day, Council Members assembled in City Hall Park for a noontime rally alongside hundreds of WGA and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) Members to call on the studios to negotiate a fair contract. 

To Directly Access This Labor News Report In Its Entirety, Go To: Hollywood’s impasse spotlights NYC’s role in film and TV - The Chief (thechiefleader.com)