Jesse Armstrong, Simon Beaufoy among writers at UK solidarity march for WGA strike

Members of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), including Jesse Armstrong, Dennis Kelly and Simon Beaufoy, protested in solidarity with the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) in London’s Leicester Square today (June 14).

Around 200-300 people attended the event held as part of a Global Day of Solidarity called ‘Screenwriter’s Everywhere’ which has included similar protests today in 30 other countries including Australia, Canada, France and Germany.

Other notable writers in attendance included Russell T. Davies, Charlie Brooker, Gaby Chiappe, Jack Thorne and Alice Nutter, who wrote the upcoming The Full Monty series.

WGGB president Sandi Toksvig kicked off proceedings before WGGB chair Lisa Holdsworth called the fight in the US “our fight” too.

“What’s coming over the hill with AI, the reducing of hours, of money that’s given to writers, the pressure that’s put on us, the schedules that mean we’re expected to do the same amount of work in half the time, it’s all about one thing… money,” Holdsworth said to the crowd.

“It’s about time there was an understanding that nobody can do their job in this industry until we have done our job. It starts with us.”

Members of the WGGB were joined by members of the WGA who are based in the UK as well as other trade unions Equity, the National Union of Journalism (NUJ) and Bectu.

Writers have also been taking to social media with many changing their profile pictures to an orange image reading “Screenwriter’s Everywhere supports #WGAstrike”. 

Some protests in other countries have taken place outside the offices of prominent streamers including Netflix, in Argentina and South Korea, and Amazon and Apple in Canada.

The WGA strike has just entered its seventh week, since starting on May 2, with streaming residuals and AI among the issues concerning US writers.

• International industry braced for uncertain summer as WGA strike drags on