For Many Working In Hollywood, The Strikes' Economic Impact Has Been Immediate

After Hollywood actors joined their writing counterparts on the picket lines Friday, it didn’t take long for the work stoppage to trickle down to almost all aspects of Hollywood.

At Western Costume Company — the largest costume house in the country that has served costume designers and stylists for more than a century — Eddie Marks made the call to furlough 43 of his employees, or roughly two-thirds of the staff, just hours after the SAG/AFTRA strike started.

“We went around and told everybody that the majority of the people were gonna be laid off,” Marks said.

The move was a last-resort for Marks, who’s headed the North Hollywood-based costume shop for 30 years.

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“We talked about it before the strikes ever happened,” he said. “Once the writers went out, we told our employees that we were going to keep everybody on as long as we could.”

And he did, for a couple months, until he had to furlough his staff one day a week. But the dual SAG/AFTRA and WGA strikes brought Hollywood to a standstill and Marks said he couldn’t see another way forward.

“We had a meeting with all the employees [last] Thursday to let them know what was about to take place the next day. And as soon as the strikes are over, we plan to bring everybody back,” he said.

But there’s no telling when the strikes will end. Both sides – the producers and streamers on the one end, and writers and actors on the other – have not returned to the negotiating table since talks broke down.

Kevin Klowden, an economist at the Milken Institute, told LAist that the Southern California economy took an estimated $2-billion hit from the last writers strike that started in 2007 and lasted just over three months.

Los Angeles, having barely pulled out of the economic ravages of COVID shutdowns, appears to be heading down the same path.

Less than a mile from Western Costume’s 14,000-square-foot warehouses is Hollywood Honeywagons, where Mike Marr’s full-time crew of five rents out trailers for television and movie productions.

“I was not prepared for the actors going out. I was certain they would cut a deal, you know, but I was not prepared,” Marr said.

The hit, he said, was almost immediate, with business already falling by more than 60%.

For example, Marr said his company still has a costume trailer parked on a studio lot for a TV production, but they’re “just storing their wardrobes in it and hoping the production will come back.”

Normally, the rental fee is about $1,000 a week. Now, Marr is just getting paid a fraction of that.

“Thankfully, though, we do events too, which is saving us right now,” he added.

But that can only last for so long. Marr estimated that he has six months before having to take drastic measures, like selling the very equipment he makes rental income on.

“I rent this stuff [out], this is how I make my living, and selling it is not, you know, attractive, but I might have to start doing that,” he said.

If that fails, he might also have to resort to layoffs.

“All the little people, the security guards, the dumpster people they bring in, all the caterers, all the people that go with it —there are lots of little people that make a living doing this that are hurting.”