As a heat dome that has roasted North America continues to move east, SAG-AFTRA announced on Twitter that it is cancelling picket lines in New York City for the next two days out of safety concerns.
The Writers Guild of America East has also made similar cancellations for Friday’s picket lines and has moved a Thursday picket line for comedy writers to morning hours before temperatures peak.
Temperatures in Manhattan are expected to exceed 95 degrees on Thursday and Friday with a chance of rain. An excessive heat warning has been issused by the National Weather Service.
Since the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 13, New York picket lines have taken place outside the NBCUniversal headquarters at Rockefeller Plaza, the HBO and Amazon offices at Hudson Yards, Netflix offices in Union Square and the Paramount offices at Times Square, where SAG-AFTRA leaders and prominent members like Bryan Cranston staged a rally on Tuesday.
This is not the first time that weather and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change have affected this summer’s entertainment industry strikes. Earlier this summer, New York picket lines conducted by the Writers Guild of America were cancelled as wildfires in Canada swept over the northeast U.S., creating hazardous air quality conditions.
