Is WGA East President chickening out ?
By fred | January 2, 2008
Today is January 2nd, 2008. This date has an importance in the on-going writers’ strike, because it is the day pretty much all late night talk shows are returning on the air after weeks and weeks of going dark.
But while all major shows are coming back, only one is doing so in a “fair” way, a signed deal with WGA on the table and writers back to work. Kimmel, Leno and Conan will have to cross picket lines to get back, so they are indeed giving in to networks’ demands. But they have explained why they did so, to save their non-writing staff jobs, and as I’ve explained before, should they actually follow that line, I will support them.
Easy and simple. Yet, things somehow seems to be more conflicted over at the WGA East…
President of WGAE Michael Winship addressed this issue in a recent statement, acknowledging that after a deal - the very same proposals that WGA were prepared to present to AMPTP when they walked out of negotiations back on December 7 - was signed with Worldwide Pants, both Letterman and Ferguson shows were going to go back on the air, and had support/blessing of the WGA.
Obviously he also talks about the other shows, coming back without such a deal, or their writers. And this is where things are getting weird, to me. Winship reminds why such a deal in a great move on their fight against the AMPTP, as part of their new “divide and conquer” strategy. Then he goes on to talks about the ones coming back without any kind of deal, and almost feels sorry when letting know that it was decided to picket in front of those shows. WTF!?
When talking about picketing outside studios of those shows, Winship talks about “a difficult and painful decision“, and it feels like he’s apologetic to Leno, O’Brien and Kimmel about it, that he’s trying not to offend them and explain why they’ll have to picket, even though they don’t really want to. Again WTF!?
Of course writers have to go picket there, they don’t have a deal, they don’t have writers, they’re joining in the dark side, and caving in to studios pressure. Yes, I know about the jobs to save and all of that, but that doesn’t change what facts are. There are no regrets to have, quite the contrary, this was a logical and - I would have thought - easy-to-made decision.
There is no reason whatsoever to apologize to hosts going back without writers. I understand that they have been extremely supportive of the strike from the start, and that was appreciated and won’t be forgotten, of course. Neither will be the fact that they are writers, members of the WGA, and crossing picket lines to go back to work, thus helping their networks, and not supporting their writers.
As I said, should they only go back to talk about the strike and nothing else, should they not try to do a good show, not try to to be funny, not ask for anyone to cross picket lines and come in for interview, should they keep showing their support to the writers and only go back on the air to save jobs, as they stated they would, their decision is understandable, and we can understand, accept even, that they cross picket lines.
It doesn’t change the very fact that they do cross picket lines. And that statement feels incredibly wrong to me, especially coming from the WGA itself, aka the ones fighting for, and in names of the striking writers !
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