The Writers Guild will strike
on Monday, November 5th at 12:01 a.m. Picket lines will begin on
Monday, barring a last-minute deal being reached this weekend -- which seems quite unlikely.
The walk-out threatens an instant jolt to television talk shows like Late Show With David Letterman, which rely on guild writers to churn out monologues and skits. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno will all revert to repeats on Monday, at least for the time being.
And if the strike drags on, audiences could see the eventual shutdown of soap operas, TV series and movie productions, as they exhaust their bank of ready scripts.
In the near term, a writers' strike will have an immediate impact on more than 200,000 workers in the movie and TV industry here and the thousands more who produce or sell entertainment elsewhere in the United States and abroad. The dispute may also signal more labor trouble to come, as directors and actors face similar issues when their contracts expire next June.
Over the long haul, multiple strikes could lead to a drastic overhaul of the economics of Hollywood. They could redefine the industry’s relationship with its highly unionized work force at a time when DVD sales are cooling and changing movie and TV markets have workers and companies alike vying for their perceived fair share of a yet-to-be-identified next digital bonanza.
"I'm afraid that everybody's in for a terrible time," said Norman Lear, the writer, producer and entrepreneur whose career spanned the disruptions of the 1980s — when Hollywood weathered five strikes by its guilds — and the years of relative peace that preceded and followed that tumultuous decade.
The leaders of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East were expected to order their roughly 12,000 members covered by a contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to stop work and be assigned picket duty when the strike begins.
DVD sales will eventually end, as the WGA well knows. The DVD residuals issue is not the crucial point. The crucial point for the writers is the payment of residuals on new media. Because all media is eventually going to a digital format (downloadable or streamed live to computers, cellphones or PDAs), writers are in a do or die situation.
The next contract signed will govern the rights of writers for years to come.
The strike will be tough, but this is the time to make a stand. Stay strong, writers!
