(NEWSnet/AP) — Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single-digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in disparate industries: UPS delivery driver and Hollywood actors and writers.

They point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically, as companies scramble to meet customer expectation for convenience in industries transformed by technology.

The pandemic accelerated such change, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a binge-worthy or have groceries delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.

Overworked, underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries in which a surge in consumer demand has collided with labor shortage. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, unrealistic schedules and company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract positions.

For Hollywood actors and writers, streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing show-runners to produce content more quickly, using smaller teams.

Traditionally, actors and writers rely on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of film and television programs. But reruns aren’t part of streaming: shows land and stay with no accurate way to determine popularity, such as box office returns or ratings. Consequently, whatever residuals are paid by streaming companies amount to pittance. Screenwriters have told stories about receiving single-digit checks.

Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever," said many actors initially were content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles streaming makes possible. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but the future of the business, Shapiro said.

"Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said at a recent union event.

Shapiro, who has worked as an actor for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like a good opportunity.

“And it was. It really was,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”

There also has been an increase of “mini rooms,” in which writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may require a year to be released, or not get selected at all.

Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America and co-creator of the Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep a team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with only one other writer.

“It's not sustainable, and I'll never do that again,” she said.

Evolving elements of consumer demand has had similar effects for delivery services.  Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced-overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic, as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season.

“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.

Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days-off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have not ratified the deal.

Labor protests could gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic,” Campos-Medina said. “We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable.’”

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