THE Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes — the first time both unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960 — have thrown the industry into an uproar as both groups together question and reverse some of the main precepts of not only the Hollywood film and television industry but the way work as a whole is constructed and managed in the digital age.

The first precept being challenged is that unions and union solidarity is a dead letter in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ever-increasing corporate power and prestige as the twin answers to solving the world’s ills.

The high profile of the two striking unions has drawn more attention and produced much more publicity for unions. The news stories in The New York Times, for example, have doubled since the actors joined the writers on strike, with most major publications feeling the need to generate stories from the picket lines where formerly the major news outlets concentrated mainly on the beginning and end of strikes.