'Company Town’ Businesses Must Adapt To Two Hollywood Strikes

Burbank-based event planner Peggy Phillips predicted business would slow when 20,000 unionized writers went on strike in May. Then this month, the actor’s union representing eight times that number of people started walking the picket line.

“This will make a big difference,” said Phillips, who runs Dial M Productions. “This shuts down everything.”

Two-and-a-half months after speaking with business owners in Burbank when the Writers Guild of America went on strike, LAist followed up to see how they were handling the impact of SAG-AFTRA joining the writers.

Home to the Disney and Warner Bros. studios, Burbank is one “company town” that feels the direct effects of industry disruption right away.

Phillips said inquiries from entertainment companies for team-building events and company picnics have dried up.

“Everybody's like, 'Well, let's just wait a little bit, see what happens,' ” she said.

Phillips said she has socked away enough savings over 37 years of running her business that she thinks she can ride out the strikes. Some events will carry on regardless of the work stoppages, like birthdays and anniversary parties.

The people she’s worried about are the performers she hires to staff her events: actors, models, stilt walkers, musicians, dancers, and DJs.

“They struggle to make a living, most of them,” Phillips said. “If you are an artist, you are also doing another job.”

At the Mediterranean restaurant Sotta, across the street from Disney, business dropped off enough the weekend after SAG-AFTRA announced its strike on July 13 that several staffers were sent home an hour or two before their shifts were supposed to end, said assistant manager Elvi Cruz.

But Cruz said she doesn’t blame the picketing actors or writers. She supports their demand for more pay.

“We want them to have their money,” she said. “It's not fair for the big old CEOs [and their] companies to have all this money … it's affecting the livelihoods of the smaller people, the creators.”

This is the first time in 63 years that both actors and writers have gone on strike simultaneously.

In a show of support to both unions — and in a bid to get more customers — Sotta is giving union members 10% discounts.

A few doors down at his auto shop and gas station, Tony Cornejo is feeling less vulnerable, having weathered many a financial storm over 51 years of operation, including the writers’ strikes in 2007 and 1988.

His business was not around the last time actors and writers picketed together in 1960, but he said his business is not as industry-dependent as, say, caterers.

“You have to buy the gas no matter what,” Corenjo said. “If you’re a striker, you need gas to come to the strike.”

Cornejo said he’s still getting some foot traffic from those picketing outside the nearby Disney studios. He’s gotten regulars coming in for bottled water and to use the restroom, and many, he said, already know where he keeps the key.