Selling Prized Possessions And Going Into Debt — How Angelenos Are Surviving The Hollywood Strikes

Greg Gilday builds spaceships for a living. Not real ones, but the ones you can catch in the new Star Wars Ahsoka series.

But having lunch outside Walt’s Bar in Eagle Rock, Gilday sounded a little bit like he’s fighting a battle in a galaxy not so far away.

“As long as it takes to f*** you, we’re going to do that, you know,” Gilday said.

Gilday’s talking about the studios and streamers who this week started meeting again with the WGA. But as a welder and set builder, the Hollywood stalemate has kept Gilday out of work for months.

Digging into savings

“I’ve dug into my savings quite extensively and still have about $27,000 in debt that I did not have at the end of April, which is the last time I worked,” Gilday said.

But he said he’d still support Hollywood strikers until a fair deal is made, and so does pretty much everyone he knows.

“We’ve all had a nice bonding over this in the streets,” Gilday, who’s picketed a couple times himself, said.

Set builder and welder Greg Gilday outside Walt's in Eagle Rock.

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Robert Garrova

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LAist

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“I’m in it because I do believe this is true: It is a pivotal time in America where being an honest person does not pay off anymore. And just going to work doesn’t get you anything at all,” Gilday said.

Listen • 16:16

Listen • 16:16

Listen: As Strikes Drag On, Financial Stress Sets In For Hollywood Workers

Reports of evictions and other hardships are starting to hit the headlines. But some help could be available for those who need a little extra financial help.

Last month, he put together an outdoor swap meet where people directly or indirectly affected by the Hollywood strikes could make some cash.

Selling a prized doll

“Because of him I was able to pay the rest of my bills this month,” Diandra Luzon, a film editor, said.

Luzon was one of some 70 vendors who showed up, everyone from makeup artists and costumers to accountants who get their business from the industry.

Luzon said she made $1,800 selling off DVDs from her prized Criterion Collection, a Darth Vader nutcracker she bought in Germany and a special doll she’d hoped to keep in the family.

Diandra Luzon's Cynthia doll.

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Courtesy Diandra Luzon

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“It was a little sad ... I got rid of a Cynthia doll from Rugrats ... I was like ‘when I have a girl someday I’ll give her that doll ... I don’t think that’s the extent we should have to go to survive. I don’t think it should ever go here,” Luzon lamented.

Out of editing work since November, Luzon said she’s gone through her savings, brought in a roommate and started Ubering for extra income.

It’s while she was driving for the rideshare that Luzon said she realized just how big the labor movement was getting in L.A., talking with striking hotel workers who are fed up with work volume and wages.

“It’s definitely at the precipice of these big corporations ... really needing to put value in their employees,” Luzon told LAist.

Meanwhile, the impact of the strikes spreads.

Business ‘domino effect’

“It’s becoming like a domino effect and now L.A. businesses are getting affected,” said Tiffany Luong, who runs a food pop-up called Vegan Banh Mi Thao, selling to bar patrons and people at outdoor markets.

Luong said sales and foot traffic have been dismal lately. It didn’t click that their business slump could be strike related until they looked closer at some of their Instagram followers.

“Like, a lot of people, their bios do say ‘writing, editing, styling, costume designers’ [and] a lot of these people are just out of jobs,” they said.

Some estimate that the drain on the greater L.A. economy from the strikes could be somewhere between $3-5 billion.

The nonprofit Entertainment Community Fund told How To LA’s Brian De Los Santos that it’s distributing between $400 - 700,000 dollars a week in emergency grants.

“The whole country — the whole world — has just gone through three years of an economic crisis. And people I think were just starting to rebuild their reserves, their savings for a rainy day. And it started raining before people were ready,” said Keith McNutt, executive director of ECF’s western region.

Thousands of Hollywood strikers marched from Netflix to the Paramount lot where SAG-AFTRA held a special rally.

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Robert Garrova

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LAist

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Back outside the bar in Eagle Rock, set builder Greg Gilday is hard at work planning for the next Hollywood strikes market in October. And he’s thinking about the reverberations of LA’s hot labor summer as we head into the fall.

“This ‘Eat the Rich’ mentality is gaining traction in my life and in my head, where it is a lot of resentment towards the haves at this moment because I think... wow, the disparity between working people and rich people is gigantic.”

For now, Gilday says he’s enjoying not being so tired for his kids. And counting on the phone to start ringing as soon as all this is over.

About the flea market

Gilday's second bazaar and flea market will take place Sunday, Oct. 15

• Location: HERITAGE PROPS outdoor parking lot at 10675 Vanowen St. Burbank
• Hours: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• More info here.