Why the Writers are Still Striking

Why do children tease? Because it feels good. It's a substitute for having money.

If you've been following the Writers Guild Strike, you know some intemperate things have been said.

It's a strike, and it's been going on for a while, and the side that's striking can get carried away, especially when they're so obviously being dicked around.

So, yeah, things have been said.

The writers called the producers some names, and we got sarcastic, too. We spend too much time with other sarcastic people. We forgot, in the real world, being smarmy with someone gets your face pushed in.

Like what's happening now. In week nine. When the producers are scuttling the entire TV industry to teach us a lesson.

Take that, writers.

And, you know, shareholders.

--

I guess we were trying to be cute, too. I mean, with the videos and stuff.

I understand that Bob Kushell's wife wishes he'd leave her alone. I've worked with Bob. I'm not sure what that has to with residuals.

(Funny guy, though.)

I'm grateful that the actors are making "Speechless" videos, but the silence and the black and white can come off a little somber.

We're looking for a raise, not a cure.

But I can see how the celebrity videos hurt the producers' feelings, too. They show the actors hanging out with the writers even when they're not being paid.

Somewhere, in their injured high school hearts, the producers secretly fantasize that the actors like them, and not just for the money. They don't. Sorry.

And by "sorry," I mean "haha fuck you."

And there, see? I've lost my temper again.

--

So, of course, the AMPTP was going to react. They might have eaten it, and negotiated a deal and restarted the industry that pays them their salaries.

But that would have meant acting like businessmen.

Instead, they revamped their website.

They put up a big ticker -- like the national debt clock -- and last week, when it hit $151 million, they posted this:

"It's official: The people in charge at the WGA have led working writers into a strike that has now cost those working writers more in salary and benefits than the WGA's organizers ever expected to gain from the strike. And the strike continues because the union's leaders are focused on jurisdictional issues that would expand their own power, at the expense of the new media issues that working writers care most about."

I love any paragraph that begins: "It's official." Official according to whom? Jehovah? The NBA? You might as well just type:

Harrumph.
Signed, A Jackass

It doesn't even have the ambition to be the hackiest opening of all: "It was bound to happen."

I guess the ticker is supposed to make us mad at the Guild's leadership: "Look what they've made management do to us." But it's a little like blaming mom for all the crying. If she'd just get a grip, maybe dad wouldn't hit her so much.

Also, this isn't about jurisdictional issues. It's about a multi-issue negotiation that one side keeps leaving. And "the new media issues that working writers most care about?" Those are the ones where the AMPTP has come up from an initial offer of "zero" to "$250... reducible to zero."

But let's look at the deeper meaning of the big number, $151 million dollars.

Let's say the writers have lost $151 million dollars in eight weeks. (It's official!) And let's say that $151 million dollars is what it would have cost the producers to give us what we want. It's a three-year contract. That's 156 weeks. This allows us to work back from the AMPTPs own numbers -- let's see, eight goes into 156 19.5 times -- and see what the AMPTP believes the WGA's demands would cost them.

5%

According to their own moronic ticker, on their own fatuous website, the AMPTP has calculated that the WGA is asking for a raise of 5%.

Over three years.

That's less than inflation.

So, maybe the producers want to explain to the stockholders that they'd rather shut down than pay that.

Or that they have to shut down, because they're running the business with such catastrophic stupidity they couldn't even afford to pay it if they wanted to.

Or maybe they just don't care. They're children. And it's not their money.

--

Bob Kushell does a room bit about a genie that's one of the four or five funniest things I've ever seen.

Read more strike coverage on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

Comments

[egghumor]

This headline just in from Reuters: "Scrapped Golden Globes ceremony hits Hollywood Hard"

Some excerpts fronm the article: "Caterers, limousine drivers, stylists, hotels and dozens of magazines and TV shows found themselves out of work when this Sunday's star-studded Golden Globes gala dinner and red carpet walk-up fell victim to the nine-week-old screenwriters strike.

"There are a lot of people being hurt by this," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. He estimated the Golden Globes annually bring in $70-$80 million to the Los Angeles economy.

"A lot of the parties are being canceled and they can run up to $200,000 each. There is a big ripple impact from this in terms of hotel bookings, security guards, parking attendants, beauticians etc.," Kyser said.
----
Duh! Isn't that the whole point of a strike? Union members make a very tough choice to impose (and survive) a strike. It's huge and daunting commitment. If no one suffers, feels the pain, and the resulting "ripple" effect, then what's the point? I've never known of any feel-good, painless strike that was worth staging, or one that brought any tangible results, did you?

[bluesnot]

Welcome to the American corporate model. Two parts here. The executives don't really care what happens. They already have their stash.

Secondly, they have someone to blame, the writers.

Who's on the Board of Directors? They don't care. How about all those advertisers? They are the ones who should be putting the pressure on the networks.

[zull2]

Seriously though, since the content writer for the website was possibly also on strike, it could very well be that "A Jackass" wrote up that piece, and told some web developer to drop that piece right in there as if it were written by someone who had a clue.

It sure looks, to me, like something that comes from the corporate business world, and not so much the Hollyworld...world...where you usually find that little bit of gleam and humor that is absent from most corporate blurbs.

In any case, I turned off my cable many months ago. I'm much happier for it. Not entirely because of the WGA strike, but hey, that gives me a good reason to keep it off. What, I should pay for reruns? Pay to watch commercials? Ha.

[sneezeguard]

I HAVE THE ANSWER:

WORK-FOR-HIRE


You negotiate your pay up front, you write, then you move on. If you don't get what you want up front, you don't do the work and you don't get paid. They want you to write webisodes, they pay you. They want you to write sitcoms, they pay you a fixed amount whether it bombs or goes to syndication. Of course that eliminates all the millionaire writers, but it also eliminates the residuals issue and certainly increases the per-instance paycheck.

For some strange reason the writer's don't like this idea. Hmmmmm....

[godlessclif]

It is not a money issue, it is a power issue.
Writers pay must be driven to the subsistence level or the bohemians will stop doing what they
are told or, heaven forbid, produce their own scripts.

[momosity]

This was the funniest, most well-written post I've read in a very long time. I can't wait to show my husband in the morning (he's asleep and I'm an insomniac).

Thanks for the laughs!

[OldNoBotox]

Four points:

It is hard to negotiate with people who act like you eat babies for dinner.

As much of a fan as I am of many of the talented actors who made the "Speechless" videos, I was amazed that they would allow themselves to come off as totally incapable of action without writers. Film is a collaborative art; it takes all the pieces. If you don't agree try getting someone to pay for a download of a writer reading his/her script while sitting in his/her office. Hey, it even takes some of those dirty deal makers with their money. In fact, some of those deal makers (while not eating babies) actually nurture talent.

Yes, perhaps the writers do deserve a larger piece of the pie but very few people cut their slice thinner by choice; that includes writers. I haven't seen a whole lot of highly paid writers giving back any money on a failed project.

Everything might move on a little more quickly if people on both sides would behave a little more like adults and a little less like middle schoolers, fun as that adolescent behavior might be.

[Bladernr1001]

I have been arguing on these message boards that unions are not that great for workers as you think they are.

Guess the writers strike is just making that point for me.

[frustratedinohio]

I think the writers should start working on their individual novels and the hell with T.V., movies, theater. We will all just stay home and read.

[rh654]

TV? The writers are doing a favor by keeping new tv shows off the air - people need less tv.

[Qbear]

btw. I will have EQUAL anger at Jon Stewart and Stephan Colbert and Bill Maher...even though I think they are INFINITELY better than Leno and Conan.

If shows we love get to have a pass on respecting their writers and the writer's families, it will be the end of entertainment Unions.

[Qbear]

It should be NO SUPRISE MotherHucker is Leno's guest tonight. Leno is a repig and MotherHucker is just a PIG.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/huckatrain.jpg

[Qbear]

I'm angry at both Leno and Conan for going back without their writers. ANY celebrity who appears on those shows should be labled SCAB enablers, and once writers are back at work, REMEMBER who had your back, and who DIDN'T.
Letterman should get the major stars and the rewards of settling with his writers...BRAVO.

I hope one of this week's Top Ten List rips cowards like Leno and Conan.

[virgiliana]

again, right on. one of the positives of this strike (selfishly, I admit) is that I get to read more of Chris Kelly in blog form.

[wrabbitt]

I understand that things have just gone down the tubes, with some shows support for their writers having ended abruptly with going back to the dribble, and saving us from reruns for another month or so. The price of a DVD will go up any way and we will complain to deaf ears as usual,But, with the speed of changes in technology we won't have long to wait until we own another set of dinosaurs,remember VHS? The advances are going to pass blu-ray and go on to movies only being released on computer oriented formats but, still keeping the middle man and making the price so high no one can afford it...like now, why buy? rent it if you like it wait 3 months and find it at wally world for 9.95