I will miss LOST a little, though.

Do i think the writers deserve their do? Hell yes, but when your union ACTIVELY keeps its members from receiving screen credit for work done on a movie, when even the caterer gets a credit, you've got some issues with your union charter.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Stop that typing!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Turn off that word processor!!!

Wooo! Hooo! Stop making shit up!

Oh boy! What FUN!! When the TV croaks I guess I'll start reading a book! What an odd result.

Read a book.

Also, they can exercise the force majuere clause in contracts and overall deals, basically discarding expensive deals they regret making.

If the studios caved on the WGA demands now, they would still have to contend with SAG next year. The only thing this strike affects is TV. Movie studios don't want to buy anything in the next few months anyway, because nothing can start production around the SAG deadline. The smart plan is to hammer out a new SAG contract as well and simultaneously close negotiations on both. If the studios cave early on WGA, SAG will have tremendous bargaining power.

Actually one of the networks should launch a new talk show in which the host sits in a chair and a guest comes out and they converse.

And shit, there's a lot of movies on DVD I have neglected to watch, but ceremonially burned to many DVD's... thanks Blockbuster! This should get interesting. Personally, I think they should hire on some amateur writers and see what they come up with. It would make things interesting to say the least.

Strikes are great if you're a skilled worker getting screwed over by your company. If you're easily replaceable, like the writers are, then you have to be careful.

I think this strike is going to backfire on the WGA to a large degree. Overall, the country is more ANTI-union than ever before, basically equating union strikes to cry babies who have too many guaranteed perks or good paying salaries to begin with who are now trying to milk a company for even more guaranteed goodies. And give me a break -- if people feel that way about blue collar workers at an auto plant, do you REALLY think they're going to sympathize with Hollywood writers who (for the most part) the average American probably thinks is already VASTLY overpayed as it is? That is compared to their jobs as a High School Teacher or cop or ticket taker on a train or a lowly office worker?

And once people can't see their favorite shows any more, they'll just get even MORE PISSED at the snobby and glamorous Hollywood brats who think its too tough to sit in a room and write for solid money. And that's the make or break point in any strike -- when you lose public support. Because that's the point the average person will 'll be saying, "Hey, try doing MY job and dealing with fucking kids all day long in a high school. I WISH my job was as tough (cough, cough) as sitting in front of a word processor all day! Sheesh, what a bunch of cry babies you guys are!"

But here's the other reality that the writers are being rather clueless about: for the most part, people don't give a shit about their TV work. They could care less if these people were out on the streets. Recent studies and polls have shown that something like 7 out of 10 people...the actual majority now...prefer to come home and go online and do stuff to relax (be it web surfing, working on their own blogs or sites, looking at porn, chatting with friends or whatever) INSTEAD of watching prime time TV. Which is why viewership is dropping dramatically and advertisers are freaking out.

So that's the wacky thing here -- the writer's want a bigger share of the Internet, but right now people don't give a shit about TV which is where they're actually employed and striking FROM. So by the time this is over, I think it could end up like the baseball strike where the owners and parks really did have a hard time and uphill fight to get the fans back because they were SO turned off by things by the time it was over.

And I agree with others here that what the strike is also really going to do is this: it's NOT going to make people realize how much they sympathize with the writers -- but it IS going to make them realize JUST HOW FUCKING SHITTY TV HAS TRULY BECOME. And that's the point where they'll realize that many of these writers who are now out of work SHOULD BE KEPT OUT OF WORK FOR GOOD.

So to that end the average person will actually be GLAD that the writers are out of their jobs, at which point they'll turn back to their computers and what they were doing and just shrug it all off...

Listen, man, you know that 'leisure time' you love so much,the 'weekend', 'benefits', and fucking 'child labor laws'? Yeah, unions blow, right, now if you're done helping to open the door to fascism in this country with your myopic ignorance, I'd thank you kindly to shut the fuck up already about communism versus 'free market capitalism'. Works great for just about everyone except the women in fucking Makati kept as slaves, or fucking Taipei being fucking worked until they DIE because they want to be 'Americans' by companies who believe that you can do whatever you want in a 'free market'. Fuck you, dude. Unions, like everything else are a mixed bag, friend, and for every donut critic teamster, there's a guy like my brother agreeing to meet quotas and busting his fucking ASS to keep the company that hired him afloat with the work he does. He's union...You know why GM was only slightly worried about the recent strikes? Because the plants striking were FUCKING MONTHS AHEAD of their quotas. So fuck you man, and take your Neo-Con, Crypto-Fascist take on 'Free Markets' with you.

Solidarity...But a 'Writer's Union'? I don't remember writing conditions being all that bad in this country...are there 'Writing Sweatshops'? See, this is why Unions get a bad name.

So you don't think you are owed something, but you think that you deserve more? so you do think you are owed something (What you deserve)? Personally, I think we are owed decent entertainment, and you lot are vastly overpaid for producing tripe.

There are 2 things that you need to remember: 1) There are a million marketing assistants out there that dream of doing your jobs, and would leap at the chance- you are not irreplaceable.

2)Not one of you would swop places with an ordinary working stiff at gunpoint.

The ape is right, sympathy for this lot will vanish very, very fucking quickly.

Fucken typos- we need an edit button.

I do my nose-picking at night, so...I'm good for now, and I don't own Underoos anymore...unless they make Brock Samson Underoos. But I will say all I need to know is that there's a Union protecting the rights of writers. Feh. No chance of one o THEM getting their arm snatched off in a thresher, mangler, or industrial accident.

Writers are complaining about working conditions, being forced to sit on their asses in Burbank, rather than in Malibu? Yeah, I don't have much sympathy for them.

Ben- I know, I just said Marketing assistants as it is pretty low rent stuff- if I'd thought about it, I should have said cunts that are tending bar in LA.

And I thought it was damned funny that a so-called pro writer posted that oxymoron above. The idiot, if that's indicative of the quality of his work, then he really shouldn't be a writer.

BSB- actually, if you think about it there is a lot of foilage populating the boards. They get paid.

I wish I was foilage. What a great job. *sigh*

A recent article on the rift between Candace Bushnell and Darren Star really shows how writers get fucked over. Yes, $1 Million is a lot of money, and that's what she made off Sex and the City. But for all the hundreds of millions that show made, she should have gotten more. And she was even a friend of Star's. I can only imagine how little other writers make for their works, who don't have the same cachet as she does. Good luck to you strikers.

I'm also not saying that they should swap jobs with me or ben or whoever (I am a bad example, my job is fairly cushy)- just that they would not do it- even when coerced.

Secondly, you said, "I don't see you working in a writer's room..." Well, I have bad news for you: I AM a professional writer and continue to do freelance writing as my "job." And to that end, though this may shock you, I actually agree with Philvis. In a free market society -- harsh as this might sound -- you really can't be guaranteed much of anything. Relatively speaking, the market SHOULD decide a product's price, particularly when you're selling a something truly specialized like writing work (which since it's artistic in nature is always going to be up to subjective judgment over its worth ANYWAY). So whenever you're out selling something creative (be it writing work, a painting, a statue, whatever) how do you really put a price tag on it? You can't. So you let the market decide what its worth and if you're the creator YOU have to make the decision if you feel you're being properly compensated or not -- at which point YOU can decide if you want to sell your work or not. But, hey, that's the joy -- and the curse -- of capitalism.

You also said: "Why is it up to you to say that the publishers or studios should get the lion's share of the profits?" Gee, I don't know, Knights, could it possibly be that maybe...just maybe...that out of pure fairness they should get the largest piece of the pie since they actually put up the investment capital to get a project published or a project made? And thus they DESERVE the bigger piece of the pie for having taken the actual financial RISK to begin with?

Look, nowhere in my post did I ever say that in the case of this strike that the writers DON'T deserve a bigger share of back end royalties from future technologies. Let me say this straight up: I think they DO deserve a few extra points.

What I DID say what that the average American...who is basically a hard working Joe who toils at a less than glamorous job for long hours and who is likewise (according to all statistics) pretty cash strapped these days from over-extended credit lines...isn't going to have too much sympathy for Hollywood writers who think they don't have enough potted plants in their Malibu offices overlooking the beach. Now I know that's not what they're actually striking over, but as I said the average American pretty much looks at Hollywood and says (1) "Boy, those people have got some pretty fucking cool jobs versus what I have to do all day long" and (2) "Man, for living the glamorous lives that they do, they also seem to be damn overpayed relative to the crap wages I'm taking home."

For crying out loud, Knights, here's the problem with pretty much ANY Hollywood strike. Whenever there's a Hollywood strike over money, the average American pretty much closes their eyes and pictures a Teamster driving George Clooney around a studio lot in a fucking golf cart and who is then pulling down a healthy 6 figure salary for that just BECAUSE he's a Teamster in Hollywood. Which only plays to the anti-union animus that's here in the U.S now. And the truth is that sentiment has been growing, and it's evidenced by more than enough polls that show the vast majority of current American workers DON'T want to join any union at all, which is why unions are facing record LOW enrollments and record HIGH decertifications in the workplace as workers literally VOTE to remove some unions from their workplace.

So given that THAT'S the mood in the country right now -- where people aren't even sympathetic to truly hard-working, blue collar auto workers anymore -- do you REALLY think they're going to get all worked up or be exceptionally sympathetic to Hollywood writers who have been churning out truly shitty TV shows AND who they also already consider to be overpayed glamor boys (or girls) that are out wearing high priced designer sunglasses as they hang around a movie set all day long?

Answer: not very likely.

Hmm, suddenly the list of shows TFD could take over begins to grow...

Unions become corrupted when someone thinks there's a PROFIT to be made out of organizing labor. Without the workers agreeing that certain things are acceptable (work conditions, hours of work, rate of pay).

I am pro-Union, because if the people getting paid don't organize, we're WELL behind the people at the top who have layer upon layer and DECADES of organization on their side. Shit, you think that it's a COINCIDENCE that corporations are lobbying to be able to prosecute whistle-blowers? But again, people don't buy US cars, and US automakers have to make layoffs? That's expected, but, if all things being equal, the company decides to shave jobs just to increase front end profits on exiting executives, hell yes threaten to stop working. Share the work, share the profits.

I'm a freelance artist, and we do get fucked royally all the time, but, I would NEVER claim that my freelance hobby is worthy of an organization 'designed to protect' me, and exclude others who don't have the means to pay to join, of a 'union'. I just want it known that the UAW and Meat Packer's Union, as well as the Electrician's Union are all troubled and flawed but fundamental systems of worker protection. Shit, how many corporations were clamoring for OSHA to get passed? Or the EOE Act? Fuck that, it takes people and workers to slap the corporations around to act right, Shit, they won't do it themselves, because, as stated by definition a corporation is an amoral entity only concerned with profit.

Not evil, but definitely dangerous without a 'control valve'. Fuck, use your heads, and right now, count your fucking lucky stars that Unions made sure your dumb ass wasn't in a fucking factory working 14 hours a day 6 days a week or getting shipped out of state to help out at Work Farms.

All this strike will accomplish is the studios, to pay the 5 cent increase to writers, will just raise DVD prices by 20%.

So again I doubt any member of the guild is seriously making $5,000 a year. I think the average is $200,000, which obviously means some guy is making 2 million and some other guy is scraping by on the same as an assistant manager at a grocery store, but nobody is seriously able to get into the guild and then pull an income of $5,000...

Does your company give bonuses or offer profit-sharing? If so, then you too are being paid more than for simply doing your job. You are getting paid because the company made a profit on the product you had a hand in creating.

On the other hand though, Hollywood is a tough business to break into if you don't have someone doing you a favor, and God-forbid you send in your script unsolicited, so maybe it'd be worth it for the scabs to lose the perks just to initiate such a regime change.

But leaving aside all that. Where does this "average wage" figure come from? I admit I was a bit off before - I got the 5K number from a screenwriter's blog, so it is a bit low. I decided to go to the source and look at the WGA annual report (http://tinyurl.com/2ltt5j). A number from the report is $38, 740 - what 25% of the members made (or less than) in 2005. So, say it is about 38,000 a year. First, that assumes that they are employed. Next to SAG, WGA has one of the highest unemployment rates in the industry (about 55% of the WGA members were employed in 2005). Secondly, 35,000 is freakin' peanuts and you can barely support yourself on that, let alone a family. And then try living in LA or New York where the cost of living is insane, and the fact that your agent and your lawyer get a cut. Meanwhile, studios continue to rake in cash from a product that wouldn't exist without your particular contribution. The writers aren't looking for your sympathy (thanks anyway, Vern) - they're looking to get paid fairly based on revenue from their product. Simple as that.

Hey, comics arent covered by the WGA right? So isnt this a great thing for the comic book community? The best writers in the industry will now be coming over to work for DC and MARVEL so the dip in quality in TV should be proportional to the rise in quality for comics. See, there's always a silver lining...

In the end though if you managed to get into the guild via an option and never got anything made, then that is an issue with the overall system in Hollywood or you are a poor writer who lucked into the option. The real meat is about a writer who does produce something and how much he gets paid at the time, how much he gets in royalties, and what protection he has from being screwed by the industry (having his name taken off the script to be replaced by an actor who changed two lines or whatever). My support is 100% for the writers, no question, I just took issue with the initial idea that members of the guild are making $5,000 a year. As if writers were some special group who made less than illegal dishwashers...

HEE!!

Jesus Christ!

hehe

AVERAGE = 190,667

Unless you're making the $1 Million, you'd definitely want a better share of the pie.

I answered, he's not. He's going into repeats.

and then you quote a news item that confirms what I said.

So am I missing something? Or did you just prove me right and your own initial statement wrong?

- The workers smile and welcome you

- Popcorn, snacks and soda are more reasonably priced

- They keep every theater sparkling clean

- Cut down on the damned commercials

- Provide free lapdances

I take it all back, and indeed I wish to put it on record that I fucked all your mothers, while you were in their basements, and they loved it...

You said earlier: "As a capitalist myself, it's galling to hear others criticize the strike from a capitalist perspective. Quite simply, who the fuck are YOU (the "they make enough" crowd) to decide what's enough for them?"

Well, the answer is obvious: if you're such the true capitalist at heart, then you must recognize that we're the consumers. We're the buyers of the goods that they're selling. So OF COURSE we should get a say in "what's good enough for them" because by the pure definition of capitalism how we feel about their product SHOULD determine their end worth AND set the final price of their product.

But the truth is it DOESN'T work that way at all. In fact, the WGA actually ENFORCES price scales. So again, if you're such the capitalist, where exactly do I get a say in things because clearly I've been cut out of a financial equation that I'm SUPPOSED to have a very profound part of. More to the point, where is my refund for a shitty movie that I was made to pay for -- sight unseen and cash upfront? In fact, in the purest sense of capitalism, how is there EVER a true market correction in the prices for scripts when an entire TV season is deemed 90% shitty?

The bottom line: when a union completely locks in a price REGARDLESS of the actual market and REGARDLESS of the actual time that a writer actually spent working on his script and certainly REGARDLESS of the final product's quality that's HARDLY honest capitalism at work.

You also said: "I'm VERY pro-business, pro-capitalism, but I'm certainly not going to let that blind me to the fact that these writers have decided that it's in their best interests to collectively bargain. What kind of command-economy bullshit drives me, you, or anybody else to decide what's "enough" for anybody? Why the fuck should the writers be any different and who the fuck are WE to tell them what they should work for?"

But again how is that actually honest capitalism at work? To be bluntly honest, with the WGA what we have here is a truly fucked-up bastardization of capitalism at its most core level. On the one hand, the writers want to argue that they’re not being properly compensated for their work...that they’re not getting enough of the profits that were generated off their work and that was earned in a free market system where the general public paid to see that product...

...And yet these very same writers who are pointing at the free market system are ALSO the very same people who THEN want to turn around and hide behind a union that very aggressively states, "Oh, and by the way, for the rest of you? You can't join our club. Well, not until you actually sell a screenplay, but to safeguard our members and guarantee that THEY keep working and NOT you, we’ve ALSO told and even outright demanded that the studios and agencies NOT accept work or submissions from non-WGA people. So we’ve locked you out to protect our own self-interests."

So I'm sorry...please...tell me again how exactly that is capitalism and a free market at work? On the one hand the writers want to use the free market to claim WHY they should be getting more money...yet then they want to turn right around and LOCK OUT as many people as they possibly can -- or at least make the hurdles that you'll have to leap to join the club SO insurmountable that you can never really get in the union. And why? Simply so they DON’T have actual competition...

...Which is the pure HEART and SOUL of capitalism.

In fact, here’s proof of what I'm saying and my outright gripe about Unions like the WGA in a nutshell: Hey, WGA, you want a $2,500 initiation fee to officially join the Guild? So that I can then have an official union card and so it will then be easier for me to get an Agent or a Studio to accept my work for evaluation and consideration? Ok, fine...DEAL. Yep, that’s right, I said deal. You called out a price and I’m TOTALLY WILLING TO PAY IT. So where do I send the check? Oh, wait...what’s that? What did you say? Even if I’m WILLING to break out my checkbook and pony up the cash I STILL can’t join the club? Gee, that’s a nice little closed clique you’re running there, isn’t it?

Sorry, but I respect people working hard and making a good living...I want to see all Americans -- hell, all people in the world to be able to make good livings to raise their families and safeguard their livelihoods -- but speaking as a true pro-business and true capitalist, the bottom line truth is that Unions like the WGA are about anything BUT actual capitalism and a free market system at work...

They have the Plant but we have the power...

*Classical Gas*,

Of course, on the other hand, when he returns from his apparent strike-induced absence, I'm sure Moriarity will have some choice words regarding the sentiments in your post, which would actually make for a truly compelling AICN talkback thread...

If so, then surely a sensible solution is to draw a line under it and for all future writing gigs negotiate properly on the initial employment contract so that you don't get shafted- on current and future media.

It's a fucking bitter pill to swallow in the short term, but in the long term they should be able to avoid being shafted again.

The thing that pisses me off no end is as a consumer, (someone pointed this out above), we have to pay for a single use product (regarding film) unseen and upfront. We have no recourse if it is substandard, so who protects us?

One nice side effect of this would be that box-office receipts would be a better indication of quality than they are now.

and Flandersbum is a cretin.

*rolls eyes*

http://tinyurl.com/2dpzwv