Letters to the Editor
-
Blaming the strikers
Why is it, whenever a union goes on strike, that the striking workers are blamed for repercussions of that strike? Instead of bitching that strikers are inconveniencing you because you're missing new shows, or public transportation is shut down, or schools are closed, how about blaming their bosses for not compensating the workers fairly? Instead of pressuring the strikers to return to work, why not pressure their bosses to meet their demands? And instead of saying, "I don't get that kind of compensation, so neither should they," saying "They should get that compensation, and so should I!"
-
As someone who has worked 30 years in an industry that both objects to unions
And is slowly withering away I have to say I really can't imagine a more deserving bunch that the WGA to feel like they screwed themselves. I have worked for years in IT where every tool you ever met imagines him or herself so special so brilliant so above it all that they laugh at you when you bring up the notion of unionizing. All the while tens of thousands of jobs, their jobs, leave the country for India, China, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Taiwan. All the while compensation has been flat or negative for the last 10 years. You just can't beat common sense into some people.
So screw them and screw you. Yes you're a precious snowflake. You go to bed hugging that thought.
-
danguyf
If Ellison is only that angry it probably isn't that bad of a deal. Yeah, they likely screwed up some points, like the animators bit, and I hope they go back to bat for them, but Ellison these days is far more interested in screaming and pissing people off than he is in anything else.
He's old, he's got money, he enjoys fighting. He may have wanted the strike to go on even if there was a better deal than the one they settled on just because he enjoys screaming at people so much.
He's got as much hyperbolie in that letter as several average trolls here on Salon in a day's worth of posts, but had it been a truly bad deal or really affected him? It would have been 3 times as long and 5 times as angry.
-
...so rooting for you
I'm not sure if a broad opinion poll was taken or if it was what it revealed, but I can say that as a white, white collar, midwest resident, I followed your strike with great interest.
I was gratfied to see the Guild hold together. I thought your issue was important, and I thought your efforts meaningful in the broader effort of turning back the tide to a greater distribution of wealth across the "skill position" population.
So, bravo and atta boy, and (now get back to work) in the words of one of the great writers of the generation, "Here we are now, entertain us."
-
Congrats - kinda
I'm glad when any group gets justice, as you have apparently here, and when people are productive and contributing to society again. But is the last of these three points really operative here? Sure, there's a demand for your product, as evidenced by the ratings, however dismal they may be at times, but does your product really make our society a better place? From what I've seen, itself an exercise in patience and self-control, I respectfully think not. The values your writing expresses and the ever-lower levels of discourse which it drives have not only not bettered our society, but have actively brought it down. What the strike really demonstrated to me, at least, was that not only did no one outside your field of endeavor really care about your issues, no one really missed your product. Simply put, we were better off without it.
-
Silly Hollywood writers...
Can't resist the schlocky fairy-tale ending, even when you're framing your own history. Yeah, you got that fixed percentage - on a prenegoiated sum, not the gross! Two percent, yay! Of $40,000... yay? Oh, and the television residuals don't kick in for 17 to 24 days, after most of the country's caught up on past episodes of NCIS. Congratulations!
Oh, but you stuck it to that mean ol' Nick Counter, who pulled the wool over everyone's eyes in the first act. Boo! Something closer to the truth would acknowledge the writers' historical shortsightedness, and the harsh realities (and the sheer improbablility) of successfully taking on the plantation owners in any industry. But of course that would muddy the narrative, and that's just too Piersonesque.
-
This article is 100 days late.
I'm a member of the Writers Guild who was on the picket lines the last 100 days. During many critical weeks I looked with hope to Salon to publish stories on the strike that were free of the slant of many of the other news sources, sources that are either owned or easily manipulated by the big entertainment companies. As an independent source for news and information, I expected Salon to run a few incisive stories on this, one of the most important labor movements in recent years. This is a labor strike that reaches into the internet, and has ramafications for any creator of content. Lo and behold, that bold article I was looking for had to be found elsewhere. Until now, when the strike is already over and the support of Salon's enlightened readers is no longer as crucial.
-
It's an ending, but not happy
It's funny that in all the victory-lap articles about the strike, nobody bothers to mention what the results actually are.
If an hour-long program is repeated as a network broadcast, the writer receives a $20,000 residual payment, with diminishing yet still substantial payments each further showing. In the future, these repeats will be replaced with ad-supported online streaming and downloads, as is already the case with shows like Lost. The Guild had hoped to receive a small percentage of the ad revenue to make up for the loss of broadcast repeats.
Under the new contract, the network gets unlimited online use of the episode for 17-24 days with no payment for the writer whatsoever. They then get unlimited online use of the episode for an entire year for a flat fee of $1200. Then they get a second year of unlimited use for another $1200. By the third year, if the episode is still online and anybody is still watching, the writer is supposedly entitled to 2% of distributor's gross. This 2% is supposedly the big concession the studios made, except it's capped at $40,000 revenue, which means the writer's share peaks at $800. The Guild gets to look at the books and see how much the studio is making, but they're getting chump change anyway.
If you want to pretend that $1200 is an improvement over $20,000, you deserve a deal like that. Just as with home video, the WGA has settled for an awful payment framework that will most likely remain in place for decades.