The Writers Guild's cracked head

If it matters to you, America Wants To Know supports the Writers Guild of America and all unions in their effort to negotiate wages and benefits that make it possible for people to be treated a little better by their employers than they otherwise would be.

We believe collective bargaining agreements that are negotiated in each industry are preferable to the kind of nationwide government programs and mandates that are passed by Congress when too many voters find themselves without health insurance and pensions.

That said, the Writers Guild is out of its collective mind.

On Tuesday, WGA West president Patric Verrone told Variety that the guild will deny a waiver to the February 24 Oscar ceremony, but grant one to the February 14 NAACP Image Awards.

Why?

"Because of the historic role the NAACP has played in struggles like ours, we think this decision is appropriate to jointly achieve our goals," Mr. Verrone said.

'Struggles like ours?'

Yes, everyone remembers that historic day in Selma when the Alabama State Police turned a seltzer bottle on Buck Henry.

Delusional. Hallucinating.

The Writers Guild has a perfect right to go on strike for a better contract and it is not their problem if people outside the Writers Guild are hurt financially by the strike. If not for the work of the writers, those people wouldn't have had those jobs and contracts at all.

But if you're going to use a nuclear weapon like a strike, which wipes out the income and savings of the strikers as well as the people whose jobs depend on them, you really ought to use it rationally. If the writers are on strike to get a reasonable, achievable deal, that's one thing. If they're on strike because they view themselves as the latest victims in a struggle for civil rights and equality, they should see somebody and get some help.

Mr. Verrone told Variety that "the conglomerates" refuse to bargain.

Meanwhile, the Directors Guild of America meets today with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for the sixth straight day of quiet bargaining. Everybody expects them to make a deal, Variety reports, and the WGA has now "begun to split into rival camps" that are divided over whether to accept or reject the directors' deal as a template for their own contract.

In other words, the writers who want to make a deal and go back to work are being stymied by those who want to continue their sad, senseless, self-destructive struggle against "the conglomerates" -- publicly traded companies that are probably owned by their own pension fund.


Copyright 2008

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "The fools at the Guild," "The painful politics of the Writers Guild," and "Who's Afraid of the DGA?"

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