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I was sent this very unofficial missive that's currently making the email rounds in reaction to that controversial WGA East and West letter to members identifying those "puny few" who went fi-core during the strike. I don't find this spoof funny because the strike wasn't funny. And I believe that the WGA leadership had every right to do what it did. Just as those fi-core members had every right to do what they did. But you be the judge if this is as inappropriate as I think it is:
Dear Fellow Members of the Writers Guilds East, West, Bed, Bath & Beyond:
During our 100-day strike, which we were sorry to see end, the extraordinary solidarity you demonstrated on the picket lines and your Long Island vacation homes, as well as the courage and dedication with which you committed yourselves to our cause, whatever it was, were not only an inspiration but also the key to making our actions being so successful in driving up business for Bob's Big Boy.
As we speak, we're all currently reaping the rewards of new media while enjoying no significant gains anywhere else. Nevertheless, presenting your WGA card at Best Buy will get us a 3% discount on Blu-Ray players.
In the face of enormous personal and financial hardship on the part of many who postponed construction on new home theater wings, you sacrificed in the knowledge that your refusal to work would reap benefits not only for yourselves but countless others in the creative community, now and in the future, while putting thousands of secretarial and below the line workers into the poorhouse. Your stalwart resolve paid off. The studios and networks instituted widespread layoffs and are heartily saluting you.
Yet among the many there were a puny, unattractive few who chose to do otherwise. These weak and callous philistines consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good. Extreme exceptions to the rule, perhaps, but this handful of members who went financial core, resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of a union contract, must be held at arm's length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are -- strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk. As none of them are Oscar nominees or "A-Listers," we feel confident in making them scapegoats for being able find work while our top leadership can't even get staffing positions.
While others forfeited paychecks to stand in unity with their fellow Guild members, valiantly trying to pitch projects to Judd Apatow and Paul Haggis between sips of Vitamin Water, many who went financial core continued to collect salaries, clothe and feed their children as well as pay rent and mortgages. Without concern for their colleagues, they turned their backs and tossed the burden of collective action onto the rest of us, taking jobs, reducing our leverage and damaging the Guilds for their own advantage. Damaging the Guild is the sole responsibility of leadership.
Even in cases of deep financial distress, there were other options, including generous no-interest loans from our strike funds, which would have sustained them until the end of the strike and beyond. That's what unions are for. That's why so many people in need who applied for them were turned down, so that those who really needed the money could also be denied.
Those who went financial core did not share in the adversity we needlessly caused; and should not share in our victory, whenever that victory becomes clear. They cannot vote in our elections, run for Guild office, attend Guild meetings or events such as "Blacklisted Writer's Day" at Disneyland, participate in the Writers Guild Awards which will be hosted next year by the hilarious Robert Wuhl, have affairs with other members, receive prerecorded calls from Larry Gelbart, upload screeners onto the internet, wear WGA t-shirts or talk to George Clooney. Further, it has been determined by the National Council of the Guilds West and East, and affirmed by Guild East Council and the Guild West Board as well as the Imperial Council on Hoth, that we send this joint letter with a link to a list on respective websites of those who went financial core during the strike. To view it now and for future reference, you can find it here. We will be subsequently including home phone numbers for crank calling and general harassment.
The rest of us are all in this together. The others, remain banished to daytime and Solley's Deli.
Sincerely,
Michael Winship
President, WGAE
Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW
Grand Moff Tarkin
Imperial Senate
---
Writers Guild of America, East Members
Who According To Rumor Became Financial Core Members
Alvah Bessie
Herbert J. Biberman
Lester Cole
Edward Dmytryk
Ring Lardner, Jr.
John Howard Lawson
Albert Maltz
Samuel Ornitz
Adrian Scott
Dalton Trumbo
Orson Bean
Walter Bernstein
Peter Brocco
Phil Brown
Howard Da Silva
Jules Dassin
Paul Draper
Jerry Fielding
Will Geer
Lee Grant
Judy Holliday
Marsha Hunt
Paul Jarrico
Victor Kilian
Charles Korvin
Louise Lewis
Arnold Manoff
Burgess Meredith
Zero Mostel
Jean Muir
Clifford Odets
Alfred Palca
Larry Parks
Leo Penn
Abraham Polonsky
Anne Revere
Martin Ritt
Pete Seeger
Gale Sondergaard
George Tyne
Michael Wilson
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You lost me at “Bed, Bath & Beyond.” And people wonder why the shows these people write are hacky.
I’m a member. I walked the line. I even moved the trash bag boundry marker as the line grew or shrank accordingly.
By taking the time to write that tiresome parody, you showed that you’re unemployed now with hours to kill, and that you most likely were unemployed when the strike began.
Move on, get a life, and find something new to parody, like “Saturday Night Fever” or something.
Wow, what a hilarious and courageous take that finally shines a light on the real villians of the strike… those greedy, overpaid writers. Of course it was all their fault! Writers are the biggest problem facing Hollywood today.
Thank God this town still has heroes like Peter Chernin, Les Moonves, Jeff Zucker and the rest of the big media CEOs, selfless and fair minded champions of the little guy. And kudos to those brave men and women who went Fi Core instead of standing with selfish and greedy union members who actually had the nerve to think they should share in the profits of the business.
I applaud the comedic genius who wrote this brilliant and thought provoking piece of satire.
I didn’t laugh because it hurt. I could understand the sense of outrage that prompted this. It seemed more an editorial on an unfortunate situation that really didn’t have any winners. If it did, then why bother with the vitriol of making a public spectacle of these Fi Core people and demanding they be kept “at arm’s length”! Only bullies call others “puny” and that’s how the Guild comes off now. What kind of PR move was it and what about the timing? Was it designed to show the town that SAG can strike with the writers backing them up?
Excellent and represents the feelings of more writers than you would ever suspect who feel that the strike was mishandled and the gains slight compared to the damage done. Pilot scripts are few and pilots even fewer meaning essentially less work for many. Yes it sounds like heresy and few care to voice it aloud but the sentiment is out there and building. Many of us who dutifully walked the lines are angry and this parody is not just some isolated crank sounding off. It’s giving (funny) voice to those writers who feel they have been aversly and irreversibly affected by the strike.
Sorry to hear you are siding with the WGA leadership on this one Nikki.
You’ve rarely exhibited a tin ear, but this time you have clearly chosen the wrong side.
All working writers that I’ve been in contact with feel the statement was beneath contempt. And by that I mean, the writers that pay the freight for the guild. Expect severe repercussions.
On the bright side I won’t have to read any more articles in the Writers’ Guild mag about the heroic blacklisted writers of yesteryear unless the current leadership is running for election next time on a platform of “Hypocrisy – Hell Yeah!”
Nikki, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t have published it. Just because it’s making the rounds doesn’t mean it’s actually newsworthy. I know some blog or website would have made it public anyway, but I still would have left it alone.
Actions entail consequences, good and/or ill. The writers who chose to go Fi-Core knew that, and they had to know they were burning bridges with the overwhelming majority who remained in solidarity with their guild.
Again, there’s no comparison whatsoever to the Blacklist. Comparing the actions of writers who betrayed their fellows to the valiant heroes of five decades ago is an insult to them and their memories. The individuals who stood up for their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association refused to betray their fellow Americans, they refused to betray the ideals upon which this republic was founded at the cost of their careers and in some cases their very lives. Anyone who compares their courageous stand to the small-minded, cowardly acts of a handful of writers during the recent strike clearly has no understanding whatsoever of what it truly means to be an American.
How is making fun of artists blacklisted by Joseph McCarthy and his HUAC committee funny? These people lost their livelihoods due to rumors of Communist Party ties. Those who choose to go fi-core did so by their own choice. Really unfunny.
If you can’t see the humor, there is no humor.
Or you’re blind.
Let’s refresh our writing fundamentals, shall we? This letter falls under comedy, albeit mildly amusing comedy. Patric’s letter is pure tragedy. Really, is there any debate here?
Not funny, not appropriate. Whoever wrote this obviously just did not get it. I look forward to reading their take on the war in Iraq.
i’m not sure what to say abotu this letter, except it’s not written very well.
i just have a thought to throw out there… anyone think that the original letter might have something to do with the uncoming arbitration between the wga and the soap co’s who broke the agreement? perhaps this is part of some larger strategy we’re not privvy to?
I think it’s brilliant and points out the hypocrisy inherent in the WGA’s utter mishandling of the strike before, during and now apparently, after.
This is funny, because a lot of writers make many times more than normal working folks. Shame on Nikki for once again showing her complete lack of objectivity by taking sides on the issue of the strike.
Lame and dumb. I don’t know whether publishing the fi-core list was right or wrong, but I think that this was written by someone who supports publishing the fi-core list, because it makes those opposed to publishing the list sound stupid. I’m not buying this one.
comedy? farce? hmmm I think writers do that.
The strike was horrible, Nikki you were clearly on the side of the WGA and you would only think this funny if it were the AMPTP being ridiculed.
Look up some of the names on the list, sound familiar? This isn’t making fun of the strike as much as making a point about blacklisting and posting thereof. The strike was exactly as it was put in the above letter.
Get over it, the list was wrong, inappropriate and now it’s over. Move along here folks, nothing left to see.
Sad we’ve lost our sense of irony.
As someone who supported the WGA and was really upset at how the leadership folded like a cheap lawn chair, yeah, I think this letter is right on the mark.
Not funny, but true.
The spoof felt spot on and funny. It can’t undo the “puny few” blacklisting, but it expresses the feelings of many through satire.
Even if you think leadership had a right to post that letter, have you no sense of humor?
Come on guys, lighten up.
Lame.
Poorly written. If you’re going to satirize, it better be funny or else you end up looking more idiotic than you already do.
Bad writing is why none of the fi-core writers are successful.
Clearly these people know they did wrong because they were defensive enough to write this tripe.
The public disdains you fi-core people.
Bravo, WGA for rightfully disclosing these fi-core slimebags.
I believe that the Fi-Core writers made their choice after a long and careful deliberation on what was best for them.
And I’m grateful that the Guild told us who chose not to stand with us, because if I ever get the chance to work with these writers, I can make tell them to go f- themselves, which is MY choice after long and careful deliberation.
The list was right. We have the right to know who bailed on us publicly and privately as they all weakened us in some way. They don’t deserve the cloak of anonymity, and comparing those people to the writers who suffered the Blacklist is heinous and an insult to those fine strong men and women who DID stand up for what they believed in.
Tally up the comments.
Most people can recognize spite and pettiness. And who wants individuals like that representing a guild of artists?
Verrone screwed up royally and if there was a lower road to take the only reason he didn’t take it was because he couldn’t find it.
Just when post strike fatigue was easing he threw gasoline on all the residual ill will, struck a match on his ass and restarted the fire.
Maybe it wasn’t the funniest parody, but it still hit the target. And to all those people judging the content and comedic value of he parody and saying that the lack of comedic value determines that they need to go fi core themselves – well, I’d love to read your spec scripts. Since you have plenty of time to throw out petty comments on this board – I doubt you’re working yourselves.
Grow up. Low tactics employed by the WGA leadership garner a low opinion of the WGA leadership. If you’re going to judge the people on the list, you should judge your esteemed leaders as well. And maybe take a look at yourself in the mirror in the meantime.
wow some of you WGA members sound like Scientologists. how dare someone leave “the faith”. what flavor is the kool-aid today?
M_Adams, surely you see that this letter was not in fact making fun of the blacklisted writers of the 50s but rather was trying to draw the parallel (albeit not terribly well) between them and the publicly shunned fi-core.
Every single fellow Guild member I’ve spoken with found the Guild’s letter of last week to be disgusting and distasteful. I have no doubt that there had to have been some internal debate about whether or not to release it. Surely someone with some sense of, well, mercy must have voiced the opinion that the letter came off as bullying.
Let’s not forget that the studios “wanted” a strike. We gave it to them. Not that we had a choice.
The studios wanted to downsize, we were the excuse.
It was a callous game played by those at the top of the food chain. But we all played our parts. If you were left standing, be thankful – it’s ugly out there.
But let’s try and remember that neither side has much to be proud of. And to Patrick Verrone, there was no reason to choose such ugly words. I’d expect more from an ALF staffer.
-johnny writer
I actually do applaud the comedic genius who wrote this brilliant and thought provoking piece of satire. Unlike “The Comet”, I am very sincere in my praise.
Have so many writers forgotten what satire is? It is a literary devise used to expose and denounce a foolish action or the lack of good sense. What is more foolish than WGA leaders feeling the need to publicly ostracize–months after the end of a very painful and costly strike– some 28 members who (gasp!) were compelled to risk the wrath of the union and continued to work.
Were those writers correct in doing so? Probably not. Did they break any laws? No. Furthermore, how arrogant are the WGA leaders that they can say these writers’ decision to work was based, “without concern for their colleagues.” How do they know that? Maybe these writers struggled with their decision and were the unselfish ones, not wanting to hurt their fellow non-writing workers who had absolutely NOTHING to gain by the writers being on strike? Or was the WGA also offering zero interest strike loans to non-union members as well?
The bottom line is, how much longer do the WGA union leaders plan on carrying on this strike? Wasn’t 100 days long enough? The worst part, they are now directing their anger and frustration with an imperfect contract towards a handful of writers. If there is a consequence for their action, then so be it. However, the WGA union leaders should take the high road and do it privately. To do otherwise, gives all unions a bad reputation.
In a business that’s about “entertainment”, it’s ironic so much rancor and negativity still exists. It is time WGA leaders and members let it go and move on. There is nothing to be gained by reliving the strike. Thank goodness there are people like the writer(s) of that parody letter who haven’t lost their sense of humor. It gives me hope for the future of our industry.
hey, “reality bites”
you think you’re clever but the kool-aid reference became tired about 3 years ago — only the right wing loons still keep on with that one because they’re behind the curve, as are you
not everyone on this board is WGA, if you could read
WGA, however, retains much support from all corners
Thank god somebody tried to make a counter statement to the repugnant email sent out by the WGA.
As far as the actual statement: Puny. Doesn’t that say it all. The condescension. The arrogance. The lack of confidence to confront those that went ficore that the WGA fear. Verrone’s level of compassion. His efficiency. His loyalty to animation writers, reality writers, and now soap writers. and, Probably the size of something that has bothered him for years and helped turn him into the petty weasel he is now. The tactics of the WGA to instill fear in its membership, nd possibly a warning to the members of SAG and AFTRA.
Yes. It is all puny.
But it represents something colossal. A lack of human dignity that will taint the WGA leadership until it is changed. A lack of respectable representatives for artists. A giant, bloody stain on the integrity of the WGA.
I would walk a mile in the shoes of any writer that went financial core during the strike before I would even imagine judging their actions. It is not an easy choice. But I couldn’t walk a mile in the shoes of Verrone or Winship. Weasels don’t wear shoes.
It’s funny just as the Canada on Strike South Park was funny. But neither of them are as funny as the victory speeches, toasts and pats on the back all the guild leadership gave each other once the strike ended.
I have a feeling that whenever the AMPTP members think of WGA leadership they just envision a bunch of giant walkin Lollypops.
If you think it’s unfunny and inappropriate, why are you posting it and giving it a bigger audience?
I have to agree, this isn’t funny at all. It seems like an AMPTP member wrote this just for the sake of writing.
Comment by observers — April 21, 2008 @ 9:49 am – “Bravo, WGA for rightfully disclosing these fi-core slimebags.”
Fair enough, but two dozen soap writers wasn’t much of a break in support.
What was?
1. The writing staffs of Worldwide Pants and every other group that signed COMPLETELY WORTHLESS “interim agreements” with the support of the WGA. These agreements (that weakened the WGA’s bargaining position by allowing AMPTP organizations to continue producing new written material) removed DOZENS of writers from the picket lines. These writers abandoned their guild solely for a paycheck. Organizations can agree with the WGA on a guise for allowable strike-breaking, but it is up to the conscience of each writer employed by strike-breaking organizations, such as Worldwide Pants, to not support such despicable behavior and stay on the picket lines with other WGA members. Those writers VOLUNTARILY CHOSE not to support the strike by resuming work while other members remained on strike.
2. Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres, Carson Daly, Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, etc. All of these people had a choice of supporting the strike or not. They chose not to do so. Their shows could have served as daily platforms for educating the public and increasing the public’s support for the WGA’s strike. Instead, these people chose to discuss only entertaining things on their shows each day that appealed to their viewers with only rare mentions (if even any at all) of the WGA strike.
So, about two dozen soap writers followed WGA rules by declaring fi-core and continuing to work.
What is the real difference between them and every writer that resumed work under an interim agreement? There are a lot more than two dozen that worked under the guise of an interim agreement. There are more that worked as scabs.
“The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” don’t write themselves, folks. The supporting graphics don’t appear magically from the stream of consciousness of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Yet, these shows continued to air during the strike.
Fine, spit on the fi-core people, if you wish, but I’d much rather piss on the heads of Letterman’s writing staff. They and other maggots like them are the “real” strike-breakers.
Hate to say it, but some of this rings true. Though clearly not LOL funny, it was annoying to see so many big-time producer/writers take numerous vacations during that time. Oh, if only we could name THOSE names.
“Blacklisted?”
Are you kidding me?
Aren’t you all liberals here?
Where’s the much vaulted “compassion” and “acceptance” that I keep hearing are birthrights of the left?
These Fi-core writers made a decision to help their families have a better life, or at least not lose ground.
And you people are backing a policy that states these people should “never work in this town again?”
Why don’t you apply a 10th of the compassion you would show an ILLEGAL ALIEN?
Hypocrites. At least finally admit that liberals are the most vindictive, petty, un-forgiving and un-accepting bunch of assholes in the world today.
To the WGA members who see nothing whatsoever wrong with the original letter: members who went fi-core did not, as much as you’d like to believe they did, commit some ultimate sin. A concept many are missing is that while a large majority approved the strike, a large majority is not 100 percent. Those who voted against the action were all the same forced into it against their will, due to being a member of the WGA. And then some of them made a choice to not have to be a part of the strike they never wanted to be a part of. It may not be noble, it might even be cowardly. But it was a perfectly legal-and yes, even understandable- choice. As I mentioned in response to the original letter, I can understand the anger over them still recieving WGA benefits. They shouldn’t. If they made a choice that would take them away from the WGA, they should be taken away completely. No “best of both world” options. And as such, I think the WGA should reserve and use the right to take membership away from these people. But publishing a list of their names, blacklisting or not, reminds me of high-schoolers scrawling people’s names on the walls of bathroom stalls to torment or humiliate them. It is shallow, it is petty, and it is horribly immature. Some people just didn’t want to “all be in it together”, so they made a choice not to be. It’s unfortunate that doing so could deter the WGA’s intentions, and it’s reasonable that some action be taken in response. But the action that was chosen? There are hell of a lot of people in the world who need a dose of “get the fuck over it”. The WGA leadership just shot up to the top of it.
I dunno – I thought it was slightly funnier than the WGA YouTube movies where the celebrities don’t talk. Those union writers is funny!
The funniest comment on this entire board is that the “public hates you fi core people.” Umm… the public doesn’t care! They didn’t care about the strike (aside from a dwindling minority who actually still watch scripted network television), and they CERTAINLY don’t care (or even KNOW) what fi core is. This perfectly sums up the lack of perspective too many in the WGA had about their “plight.”
I have to mention… I can’t understand how in the world anybody (who has a sense of humor) would find this letter to be inappropriate because it spoofs a “serious” subject. I mean, it’s one thing to just not think the joke itself is very funny, but the concept of the joke offends you? That’s absurd. I suppose you never laughed at a Nazi or Holocaust joke in a Woody Allen movie? I can’t wait to see what you think of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. Doing satirical jokes about the wrongness of blackface is CERTAINLY off limits. I’m sure you’re all fantastic writers here, I just hope those of you who find the idea of satirizing serious subjects to be “inappropriate” aren’t writing the comedy…
The sarcasm in that letter does properly describe the general feeling of most crew that are not SAG, WGA or DGA.
You know a crew averages around 100 people without WGA, DGA or SAG members, and in most cases those 3 unions are respresented by about 30 people total, (with a reasonably sized cast). In more cases than that the WGA is 2 people in ratio to the other 100, so for every 2 writers that went on strike, approximately 100 people lost their jobs- I think that should verify why there is so much venom in the air.
People who will gain nothing – lost everything and believe me that those people would have loved to go fi-core and go back to work. More than likely the crews that got to keep working because of the fi-core writers
are still thanking them, so back-off.
What the WGA did by publishing their names borders on criminal, how about they publish all of your payment records so that those members who pay their union dues late can be reported and ‘kept at arms length’. I think the comparison of the blacklisted writers is that the WGA is behaving like ‘Big Brother’ and I for one cannot think of a more American behavior than to make a decision based on taking care of your family.
Slow news day?
Move along. Nothing to see here. Just Nikki picking a scab.
Or has Nikki been replaced due to illness by someone insisting that I un-bookmark Deadline Hollywood?
It was sad enough when our leadership acted like twelve year old vindictive twerps and published a ngnaah-ngnaah-ngnaah-na-ngnaah list encouraging other members to shit on the Fi-core members. It’s just plain tragic when some snot-nosed assh**e pens a vile and disgusting piece of crap like this, pissing on the names of people who endured more than this little twit will ever face and others – I’ll bet teenagers – write in with their clueless “Fuck Yah’s!!!
I didn’t think anything more reprehensible could be written than Verone’s letter, but as always in Hollywood, the sequel was far worse.
You know what’s REALLY not funny. Two guild leaders purposely trying to do harm to 28 writers that may have made an unpopular decision but were not purposely trying to hurt anyone by making it. Maybe their act can be considered self-serving, but their intent was not malicious. And it did not undermine the strike. And it was their legal choice, whether people agree with it or not.
But Guild Leadership apparently feels so weak that it finds these individuals such a great threat that they must be publicly humiliated and banished for all eternity. That seems to indicate the WGA leadership has no faith in its own merits and can only feel important and powerful by bullying others.
I’m glad that somebody attempted a parody of the letter, but it actually wasn’t necessary. The WGA’s own letter was a parody of leadership on its own.
Nikki, I think your credibility has taken a real hit in these last two WGA postings. It was clear that you were pro-Guild during the strike… but that’s okay, because so was any reasonable person (in my opinion, anyway).
But now you’re going pretty extreme. I mean, look around: lots of rank and file WGA members are really pissed off by the petty course of action their leadership has taken. No one would have accused you of being in the moguls’ pocket had you looked at the original letter with a fair and logical eye, rather than automatically siding with Verrone.
It was one thing to give the Guild their day in court when the mainstream media wouldn’t. But this isn’t helping anyone — except insofar as it’s encouraged the many WGA members who are losing patience with Verrone et al. to speak up.
While the writer’s were on strike, JJ Abrams was shooting Star Trek, crossing picket lines at Paramount….WGA member JJ Abrams, most likely did several re-writes of the Star Trek script. The movie, Hotel For Dogs was also filming during the strike. So, the WGA “outs” the little people, but is quiet about all the “big” people…but then they didn’t go fi-core, they were just SCABS. Bullies, that’s what the WGA has become.
Funny. Very funny. Truth hurts.
Now it’s the SAG leadership that will lower the bar.
Didn’t they say, “The WGA’s cause is our cause, their strike is our strike, their negotiations are our negotiations.” Oops! The WGA’s deal isn’t our deal! Hell no. We want MORE!
Get ready to lose a lot more, folks.
Is this a witch hunt? Yes. Is it fair? No. BUT, during a strike one can not just abandon everyone and say; “I hate you because my rent is due and expect life to be fair to me after the strike is over. Suffer you scum picketers suffer.”
Even George Clooney didn’t go fi-core until after the strike.
I say, let the black list begin. Hey, I got kinda sad not seeing my name on the list. At least it would have guarantee me work as a writer for QVC.
Anyway, Happy Ass kissing your way back to the top SCABS.
See ya soon.
WGAw member in good standing / SAG & AFTRA
Whether or not you think the satire was funny or unfunny – appropriate or unappropriate – I was pleasantly surprised by how FEW names there were on the list- and that’s the news we should all applaud. But until one stands in another person’s shoes who are we to judge? I can think of a number of scenarios where writers between a rock and a hard place were forced to choose fi-core over support for the union not out of lack of loyalty but necessity – maybe it was the medical condition of a sick child – maybe they were in a custody battle and needed to prove employment – unless we know their motives I think it best we give our fellow men and women the benefit of the doubt. But public flogging? Should we put them in stocks in front of the WGA building? This puritanical outting only serves the self righteous and those without sin. I’d wager that list is longer.
I think it’s inappropriate for the WGA to alienate any members regardless of what side of the fence they fell on during the strike. It’s a show of limited maturity and diplomacy towards people they have an ongoing working relationships with.
They could have easily announced the membership adjustments made in response to those went fi-core, but, they had no reason to put up a shit list. Save that petty crap for the Studios Moguls and low brow self-righteous executives that are too busy holding a grudge, instead of bettering their products.
This response is still crass, but so was the WGA shit list.
How is the list published by the WGA last week any different from the blacklist of the 50s? It isn’t.
Isn’t fi-core part of the WGA agreement? If so then what they did was perfectly within their rights, however distasteful others found it.
Liberals love to shout “McCarthyism!” at the drop of a hat but here it is coming from the left. Just remember this the next time you need to lash out about persecution.
Many posters on both threads have said it right.
#1) The WGA is not a voluntary organization. Not everyone who wants to enter can. People who sell a script and don’t want to join, have to. The whole setup should be examined but …
#2) Not everyone voted for the strike. So now you have forced people into membership, and then ignored their protests, and expect them to go merrily along without income. Wow … but yet …
#3) Fi-Core is a part of the guild. Taking people to task for going fi-core is the same as taking them to task for using the guild’s medical benefits. If someone has a benefit/rule and they use it, why should they be punished? Of course, they should not.
Verrone was elected on a platform of strike. He would have struck even if the studio’s handed him a blank piece of paper and promised to sign whatever he wrote down. And the toll he took on BTL’s and writer’s will endure for quite some time. The letter is simply yet another beacon of light on Verrone and the guild’s practices.
“Not funny, not appropriate. Whoever wrote this obviously just did not get it. I look forward to reading their take on the war in Iraq.
Comment by Kathy — April 21, 2008 @ 7:06 am”
Kathy, you’re either 12 or a blazing idiot to mention Iraq and a writer’s strike in the same sentence. Shame on you.
100 days of striking. Money that will never be made up. Now it’s the actors’s turn. I thought the piece was funny.
To Aundra, who mentions all the “venom in the air” against the WGA/SAG/AFTRA and it’s membership, I’m curious as to why you’re focusing all your anger on just them? Where is the criticism and anger against the AMPTP?
Are you telling me that the big media CEOs and their companies had nothing to do with the strike? That you think they negotiated in good faith? Are you familiar with the history of DVD? Where’s the venom over the way these guys do business? Over their huge bonuses and they way they continue to cut costs by slashing jobs?
Seems like blaming writers 100% for the work stoppage is a very simplistic way to view the strike
Harold, you are wrong on almost all points in your latest posting.
1. Yes I do agree that the “interim agreements” are worthless, but that is because the strike is over. These agreements were designed to create dissension within the AMPTP ranks and jump-start negotiations. It is true that the DGA reached an agreement with the AMPTP first, but had the WGA not been making those agreements, I am sure that Gil Cates and other DGA members would be force-feeding the WGA into taking the DGA deal, and that would cause major ripple effects where the WGA would be forced into taking a deal that would include massive rollbacks and little if anything in new media. If the WGA stood their ground, the strike would continue and I don’t think talks would go anywhere until July when the SAG would join the ranks.
Now let’s say negotiations failed with the AMPTP succeeding in ruining the proposed agreement that causes the Oscars to become a struck show. I am sure that with the interim agreement program in place, both Disney and NBC Universal (with parent company GE) would be rushing to be the first major network to sign an interim agreement. Had either or both of those networks signed an interim agreement, the strike would likely be over with the AMPTP dead and the interim agreements marking the basis of the new WGA contract.
2. Of all the people that you listed, only Jay Leno, Carson Daly, and Ellen Degeneres didn’t support the strike on your terms. Granted Carson Daily was a strikebreaker who chose to not support the WGA, but both Jay Leno (giving the writers their fuel (donuts)) and Ellen Degereres (walking the line on the first day of the strike, and making a written statement supporting writers) did make statements supporting the WGA. In addition, Conan O’Brien did most of this struck shows with a strike beard. Jimmy Kimmel made sure his writers were paid residues by airing old segments during his struck shows. Jon Stewart made sure that he would do “A” Daily Show instead of “The Daily Show,” in support of writers. Stephen Colbert supported his writers by being anti-union though the trick to his show is to always believe the opposite of what he says. David Letterman is a staunch union supporter and supported the WGA with help from his writers through the strike, in which he made fun of the AMPTP. So did Craig Ferguson. Meanwhile Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, and Whoopi Goldberg don’t count because their writers don’t work under WGA entertainment contracts. This meant that they don’t have to talk about the strike and chose not to do so.
3. The Interim agreements were valid agreements in which the WGA let them go back to work in order to create dissension within AMPTP ranks. As I said, this was an successful act due to the new agreement. The fi-core people chose to not listen to the WGA and take strike benefit packages. What happened is that they decided to work and their decision will prove fatal in the long run because they decided to go back to work. If they refused to strike, they don’t get any gains in benefits from the strike.
……….and everybody was complaining about the “low life” tactics of Nick Counter!
When is the next election for WGA upper management?
Does anyone think Verrone will run for re-elect? Think he’ll win?
As a wga member who walked the lines, attended the rallies and drank the kool-aid like a demon, I felt betrayed by the fi-core email because my elected officials showed themselves to be petty, still on a warpath agenda. I voted yes for the strike to help organize animation, not to piss around for a hundred days and come back with the same deal we could have basically gotten without a strike. The threatened rollbacks were because of all the saber rattling. The email made me ashamed. The spoof restored my faith in the power of a writer, as in troubling times they can resort to satire instead of sorry rhetoric.
I think you will see more writers going FI-CORE in near future. You will also see many SAG taking FI-CORE as well. Two guild leaderships basing their platforms on striking, is not only regrettable, it show a lack of human respect for those that work with them.
The idea that these people are liberals show a lack of understanding of what that movement is. Were human rights violated here most likely yes. Should the fi core suffer, they will in the future. Should these leaderships be run out of town, most definitely. By the way I think Winship was coerced.
Comment by Jessy S. — April 22, 2008 @ 1:59 pm – “Harold, you are wrong on almost all points in your latest posting.”
Thanks for your completely clueless commentary.
Each day, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert prepared WRITTEN OUTLINES for their shows, they rehearsed from those outlines, assigned duties based on those outlines, and performed their shows in accordance with those outlines.
The interim agreements were COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. They were also retroactive to the date that they were signed meaning that NONE of their terms were ever applicable. They were a repeat of a similiarly failed strategy.
FYI, except with one area, the WGA and the DGA deal are exactly the same. The area that isn’t is not applicable to directors. The WGA didn’t approve on the DGA deal AT ALL.
None of the congloms broke. They weren’t going to break. They will not break in the future. The WGA doesn’t have the resources to be on strike indefinitely.
The only good thing about the WGA strike is that it will ensure that there will not be another WGA strike anytime soon. Weighing solely what was gained over what was lost, the strike was spectacularly unsuccessful.
People can posture about secruing toeholds, but the same home video residual toehold hasn’t improved in 20+ years. Other toeholds will only remain that. Only strike whores want another strike.
The fi-core people made the wrong decision, but they have more integrity than Worldwide Pants writers who could have remained on the picket line if they had wanted to do so, Jay Leno who publicly admitted preparing written material, and other scabs.
Fi-core people are desperate or misguided. Leno, Stewart, Kimmel, Colbert, and writers who abandoned picket lines and resumed writing work without declaring fi-core status are scabs.
Just because you approve of their scabbing doesn’t make it less so.
Jessy S-
The View actually IS a WGA show. And Barbara Walters was NOT supportive of the writers strike. Markedly not. And shame on her for that.
Many of those late night hosts you mentioned should be censored or fined because they were working scripted.
You “WGA to the death!” drones are unreal in your self-righteousness and hypocracy. The rest of the town is laughing at you…except for Nikki, apparently. She seems to want to defend you till the end. Get over yourselves.
Harold, give me written proof that Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert prepared written outlines for their shows. First of all, most shows do need a rundown regardless of if writers are working or not. What you are implying is that they all written their shows while on strike. I will agree that Jon, Stephen, and Conan written their “fight” over who made Mike Huckabee, but they likely made a verbal agreement to get together and stage the fight due to sweeps. The only brouhaha was over Jay Leno and his doing of monologues during the strike. You are forgetting that all five were forced back onto the air by their employers. FYI, they were not SCABS.
As for the interim agreements, they are worthless, but they were worth something during the strike to the point that MGM, which owns part of United Artists, balked at Tom Cruise and United Artists making an interim agreement with the WGA. Other than that none of the congloms did break, but they were about to do so if the last round of negotiations were unsuccessful in anyway, shape, or form. What we saw were some informal negotiations headed ABC/Disney and CBS to try to broker a deal. If that failed, then it would be a race between ABC/Disney and NBC Universal to reach an interim agreement with the WGA because they have the most to lose strike wise. The agreement was reached because the AMPTP companies wanted to save face and end the strike without the interim agreements becoming the next permanent WGA contract.
As far as the most people are concerned, if the interim agreements didn’t exist I only pointed out what could happen. Besides, didn’t the WGA stay out for six months in 1988? The only difference between this strike and the 1988 one is that the public was fully behind the 2007-08 WGA strike. All the interim agreements were designed to do, was bring the strike to a quicker end.
In terms of the success of this strike, the AMPTP wanted massive rollbacks everywhere. In addition, all negotiations were a farce to the point that the AMPTP forced the WGA to go out on strike. As a result of the WGA’s moves, they managed to prevent every rollback and had massive gains in new media. If that is a loss, I don’t know what can be considered a win. There isn’t going to a WGA strike anytime soon because the next strike can start anytime after May 2011. The next strike will be by the SAG and they are facing the same issues that the WGA faced.
Yes the fi-core people deserve to be outed, but nobody that worked for shows, that were forced back onto the air without writers, deserve to be patted on the back because they worked in hard situations.
BTW, I know that The View is a WGA show, but that show is covered under the news-writers division of the guild. Barbara Walters created The View as an hybrid news discussion/talk show. This means that her writers are likely from the news industry, and some of them were there with her from her first day at ABC.
With so many side deals, special circumstances, different designations for production houses (ie, Letterman actually owns his show as opposed to Leno who does not – ?!? – these kinds of separations are tax and financial choices, really, not anything more) and separate contracts for different writer designations, where’s the unity? Was there ever any? Membership is such a cobbled together group of separate industries with different priorities that it’s a miracle someone was able to print and distribute t-shirts. The market leans to where the growth is and that has always been the bitter truth of capitalism. The studios aren’t fighting for soap operas. And neither is the WGA. So what’s the difference between the two, except the names of their respective legal counsel? And publicity agencies.
tv editor…. You “WGA was the reason we were all out of work and were 100% responsible for the strike!” drones are unreal in your self-righteousness and ignorance.
Vince…I wasn’t out of work, but thanks for your concern. How are those congressional hearings looking into the studios cooking the books going for you? Has Variety shut down production from everyone canceling their subscriptions? But hey, at least you got minimal gains in exchange for fewer writing jobs, right? Way to go!
To Vince-
I am sorry if you thought my post in response to a WGA letter that was posted against it’s own union members did not address the resentment I have for the AMPTP. Let me clarify- I am equally dissapointed in both parties. The point is that the IATSE members have been forgotten in this. So the next time you make a copy with paper your Production Staff got for you on a copier that was delivered by Transpo while drinking your cup of coffee that Crafty prepared- say thank you, because we lost a lot so that you all could fight for more.
I can answer your question Bob. The reason why everything might be different in your respects is because of one word, broadcasting. You are right that shows are different, but so is the time of day.
Granted, the above is from a book I read that was printed in the 1970’s, but it still is the same thing today. Yes the WGA membership at large is different, but they all still face the same issues. A soap writer is employed by the same network that airs a hit prime time show. Meanwhile, that movie, that is expected to be in theaters next month, that you might be looking forward to, will eventually find itself on basic cable or even on Network TV. Translation, the WGA has no choice but to negotiate with the studios and networks as a coalition. If we were to look at these side deals, they did their purpose and that was to restart negotiations or force a major network or studio to kill the AMPTP by accepting one of those “side deals.” The only thing that did lead to Letterman’s side deal was the fact that he hates the AMPTP about as much as Eric Cartman hates Kyle and almost every other Jew in South Park.