It looks like there will be no new agreement in place for a long time to come, as Hollywood studios and producers walked away from talks with the writers.
The current round of talks have been going on for eight days, with evidently no progress being made at all.
Studios sent a letter to the WGA through their negotiator, Nicholas Counter, saying that the writers needed to take a number of issues off the table before they continue negotiations. Among them were the usual residuals for Internet use, getting reality and animation writers in the union, and eliminating a clause that doesn't allow them them to join sympathy strikes.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said about the breakdown in talks that it is "puzzled and disheartened by an ongoing WGA negotiating strategy that seems designed to delay or derail talks rather than facilitate an end to this strike." They also said the guild's "Quixotic pursuit of radical demands led them to begin this strike, and now has caused this breakdown in negotiations."
I agree with them here. The Writers Guild of America's attempt to make them look like some struggling blue collar workers is so dishonest that I've lost all respect for them. The average $200,000 yearly wages received by them is 4 to 5 times the amount of a regular American worker. Many make a lot more, like some Jay Leno writers who make up to $500,000 yearly.
Even looking at the stupidity of trying to expand the union as an issue is bizarre and irresponsible. Unions are dead, they have no useful purpose any longer; they so last millenium. The word and practice shouldn't even be part of our vocabulary any longer; especially in white collar jobs where the average worker earns more than $200,000 a year.
You can see the type of people they are, as they whined and attacked some of the talk show hosts for not paying them while they didn't work. There are a lot of people in need that could actually use the money, than these spoiled brat writers who think someone owes them something, even though they are in one of the highest income levels of all professions in America.
The other undiscussed thing is the continued selfishness of these writers in putting other people out their jobs. They don't care about them. They continue to misrepresent their true income and wealth, in an attempt to win public sympathy. I don't sympathize with anyone that will distort the reality so much, at the expense of anybody else but themselves.
This doesn't even include the poor product being put out by these writers, as people continually gravitate to better content on other platforms. It's one of the reasons so many don't watch TV much anymore.
Another element in the mix is that media companies are struggling tremendously now. It looks like the existing economic conditions will cause them to slow down in revenue over the next year or two, as people tighten up their wallets. Add to that the very real uncertainty of what the Internet really will become for the industry, and you have a strike that has no current meaning.
If things like this needed to be looked at, it should have been three years from now, not negotiated under the cloud that now exists from not having the time or data available to make informed decisions.
While I understand the strategy of overreaching in an attempt to get what you want, this overreaching is so far beyond reality by the Writers Guild, that it can't be taken seriously. If the studios give in, they could lose so badly as to injure the industry for years ahead.
What should really happen is The Writers Guild should make a public apology for its selfish actions, and then disband and start doing their jobs, which pay far more yearly at this time than any American will ever see in their lives.
This strike is built on no substance, by a union that is acting like we're still living in the 20th century.
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