Hollywood writers launched their first strike in more than a decade on Tuesday, halting their work on film and television projects to pressure the big studios into boosting pay.

The most recent contract between the studios and the writers unions expired on Monday, with the two sides still in disagreement over pay rates, residuals and other key items in the streaming era. The two unions representing the workers, the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East, had warned of a strong likelihood of a work stoppage.

The strike involves more than 11,000 writers, most of them in Los Angeles and New York City, where the unions were planning picket lines.

Writers are expected not to produce new work for struck studios. The work stoppage could quickly affect late-night talk shows, but there would be a lag before viewers saw the effects of a prolonged strike on scripted television shows and film.

Writers say that it has become increasingly difficult to receive a reliable paycheck as streaming platforms have boomed. Streaming series typically use smaller writing staffs and have fewer episodes per season compared with traditional network shows. Writers also say the system for residuals payments for when work is reused, such as in television reruns or the sale of DVDs has been undermined by the shift to streaming platforms like Netflix.

In a sign of how frustrated writers have grown, the unions recently held a strike authorization vote in which nearly 98% gave their union leaders the green light to call a strike. Nearly 80% of eligible members took part in that vote, and the unions said both figures were record highs.

As screenwriter Alex Blagg recently put it on Twitter, [E]ven though Ive co-created shows, won Emmys, been on The Black List, sold two features and staffed steadily in TV for 8 straight years, I still cant figure out how to earn a stable living as a writer.