The entertainment industry is on strike. This Sacramento actress supports the movement

Sacramento native Danielle Moné Truitt co-stars on NBC’s hit show “Law and Order: Organized Crime” as Sgt. Ayanna Bell. These days, though, she can be found on a picket line instead of a TV set.

Production for Truitt’s show — and many others — has ground to a indefinite halt due to a television, theatrical, and streaming strike that’s been ongoing since July 14.

Season Three of “Law and Order: Organized Crime” just concluded, and filming for the fourth season was scheduled to begin next week. But actors and writers are striking over a common concern, Truitt said: they’re not being properly compensated for their respective art.

“Everything is lopsided and has been for a very long time,” Truitt said. “The strike is very necessary.”

The strike comes after the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers couldn’t reach a new contract agreement.

SAG-AFTRA is a labor union that represents about 160,000 media professionals including actors, recording artists, singers, voiceover actors and stunt performers. They followed in the footsteps of the Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters and went on strike against the AMPTP in May over an ongoing labor dispute.

AMPTP is made up of an alliance of media conglomerates including Amazon/MGM, Apple, Disney/ABC/Fox, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount/CBS and Sony, among others.

As long as the strike is ongoing, SAG-AFTRA and WGA members won’t participate in any production with AMPTP companies. That essentially means production on most TV shows has stalled, include “Law and Order: Organized Crime.”

SAG-AFTRA’s requests include higher minimum pay, sustainable health care and retirement benefits for all performers. They’re also seeking to protect actors’ images and performances from artificial intelligence, and increase their share of compensation from streaming revenue.

“There’s a lot of things that need to be reformed and changed in the entertainment industry, and I’m just proud of us for taking a chance to stick up for our rights,” Truitt said. “I’m happy that we’re taking the chance to do that because nobody’s going to protect us or stick up for us if we don’t stick up for ourselves.”

Truitt grew up in south Sacramento and graduated from Valley High School. A lifelong performer, she started singing when she was 8 and joined a youth dance team called “Touch of Gold” at the age of 9. Her first theater performance was a sixth grade production of Beauty and the Beast, where she played Belle.

Truitt was taking a theater elective class at Sacramento State when a professor “saw something” in her, she said. She switched her major shortly thereafter, graduated in 2004 and went on to act in shows such as BET’s “Rebel” and movies including “The Princess and the Frog.”

Truitt told The Bee it’s “a blessing” the way her career has unfolded. However, she hopes the strike will be over “sooner (rather) than later.”

Studios have been fiddling with various ways they can use the development of artificial intelligence technology to manipulate or clone artists’ image and likeness for profit.

They want to make money off actors without paying them, Truitt said. If the studios want to create content using AI, she believes people should be paid from the use of their likeness.

“Giving AI that much capability, it basically means human beings lose their jobs and human beings lose the opportunity to be able to make film and television, and music, because it’s happening on that side too,” Truitt said. “It’s just blatant disrespect.”

Racial pay discrepancies also vex Truitt, a Black woman. She said Black people working in Hollywood don’t make what their white counterparts make and wants equal pay regardless of race or gender.

According to the WGA’s 2016 Hollywood Writers Report, white writers earned an average of $133,500 in 2014, whereas female writers averaged $118,293 and non-white writers just $100,649.

Specifically, Black writers on average were paid $99,440 in 2014, the report said. As for actors, Truitt believes she would be paid more if she were white.

“I’m not really being paid what I should be being paid to be No. 2 (and a female lead) on a show,” Truitt said. “If I was a white woman, as the second lead of a show, I would be being paid much more than I’m being paid.”

Like thousands of other actors and writers, Truitt has to continue to pay bills without any income coming in. She’s been pouring her love and time into her two boys, she said, and hopes she can do theater or something else to earn a living while on strike.

“The whole industry is affected by this strike because if the actors can’t work, there will be nothing being made. There’s nothing for camera operators to shoot,” Truitt said.

Truitt remains grateful and feeling blessed that “God opened up an opportunity” for her to work on “Law and Order: Organized Crime.”

Whenever the strike ends, she’s optimistic that her show will still be in production. “Law and Order: Organized Crime” doesn’t currently have a showrunner and can’t hire one until the strike is over, she said.

“Hopefully when the strike is over, I will actually have something to go back to,” Truitt said. “When you go through a strike, the industry is losing money. That does affect whether shows come back or not, so I hope my show comes back when this is all over.”