The Writer’s Guild strike is over after a measly 100 days.
What was gained? If you strike, you don’t strike to win parity or a cast off breadcrumb. You strike to win big. You strike to take the ball back. Did the WGA win big? No.
Some believe the strike cost $2 billion dollars to the Hollywood economy in lost production, catering closures, florists dying, valets being laid-off, hotels churning empty rooms, restaurant workers waiting on nobodies and costume-houses going dark.
The WGA gobbled up a breadcrumb concession on payments from online entertainment. That’s it.
On December 7, 2007, the Guild was rightfully demanding the unionization of Animation writers and Reality show writers as well as the right to Sympathy Strike. On February 11, 2008 — when the strike ended — they won none of those demands.
The Writers Guild was whupped by the producers, and in the bloodletting, thousands of people lost their jobs, a few lost their homes, and everyone lost their respect for a Writers Guild strike that turned out, in the end, to be spineless and pointless.
