Hollywood Writers Strike, A Report from the Front Lines

A Report
by Jerry Buck

It looks like it's going to be a long, cold winter for the writers in Hollywood. The L.A. Times talks about it today.

The studios have finally revealed their true intentions: To give nothing new and take back concessions granted in the past. Their hope is to do away with residuals and not give an inch on the Internet.

The studios are now owned by large corporations, backed by big bank accounts, unused to dealing with creative people, and run by execs who play rough and dirty. The thought of paying residuals gives them apoplexy. They've hired tough political consultants to unleash a public relations campaign labeling the writers as leftist apparatchiks.

Their aim is to break the Writers Guild before the Actors Guild contract expires and they can join forces. The actors are very militant this year. The Directors Guild contract expires next, and historically the studios have given them what they want ... because the directors don't like the writers ... or the actors.

Residuals are what allow writers and other creative people to live through lean times. Perhaps even a strike, since the money must be paid. A hit television show can be worth a billion dollars in rerun sales. I'm not exaggerating. The creative people deserve a share of that.

The studios are laying off thousands of other workers to put more pressure on the writers to settle. The movie business creates a huge chunk of the L.A. economy, and a lot of businesses are beginning to suffer. So far the public has been on the writers side, but it could change when the strike starts hurting their pocketbooks.

I don't know if, or when, the writers might yield. A lot of them don't have the money to sit out a long strike. Some of the richer writers are giving money to some of the needier writers.

The thing about the creative guilds. A majority of the members work only rarely. A few jobs and they're in the guild as long as they pay their dues. They could sway a vote.

In any case, the studios are out to break the Guilds and unions. I'm sure they'd like to return to the days when actors made what supermarket cashiers make today.

In the meantime, millions of kids may abandon television for the Internet. Personally, I have yet to watch any of the so-called reality shows turning the networks into dead end streets. The Writers Guild meanwhile is encouraging its members to go entrepreneurial and bypass the studios to create their own shows for the Internet.

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The Writers Guild