s skippy the bush kangaroo: write or wrong

skippy the bush kangaroo



Sunday, December 02, 2007

write or wrong

readers of this space may have been following skippy's reportage from the front lines of the wga writers' strike. tho many commenters on other blogs have expressed disinterested, or at least confusion as to why latte-sipping fat-assed hollywood writers whining for more money should matter to the public at large, we think that joss whedon, creator of buffy and angel and firefly, puts it quite succinctly over on united hollywood:

well, we might take this to the streets of some other cities. get the word out, remind everyone that corporate greed (it's nothing but) is hurting everyone in this country. not just because they're robbing people of entertainment (and, on occasion, art) and strangling an entire (non-writing) community, but because they're sending a message to every union in the country: you're next. the actors know that in their case, it's literally true, but it's also true for the concept of a unionized workforce. we get a lot of flack for being well-fed, glamorous, rich and powerful. we've worked hard to dispel that stereotype but in fact, a select few of us are wealthy and influential. and we have the support of some of the most famous and beloved (and wealthy and influential) people in the country: tv and movie stars! so the fact that the studios feel perfectly comfortable spitting in our faces in front of the whole world cannot bode well for any other union that works under them -- or under anyone who sees how easy it is to deny the basic rights of workers even so public as we. this is bad for writers, bad for actors, teamsters, teachers, nurses, dockworkers... the shape of this country is changing. the middle class is being squeezed out. we're trundling back to the middle ages, people, and all we can do is lie there and take it.
joss goes on rail against the studios and promises that we, the middle class, will not take it.

but he's right. this isn't about leno reruns. this is about the corporate infrastructure trying to destroy the middle class, trying to take the money away from the majority of the hard-working people in this country, letting them slip into wage-slavery or poverty. while pocketing their incomes for themselves.

we read a comment about another story on a washpost page, where the commentor encouraged tax cuts for the wealthy, because the wealthy "tend to be the ones who are in a position to create jobs for americans."

yeah, right. too bad they send those jobs to india, or replace those jobs with phone voice menus. the rich aren't generous. how do you think they got to be rich?

if you don't support this and every labor action, friends, you are supporting the nails in your own economic coffin.

and speaking of leno reruns, c&l tells us that jay had to scramble to keep his good reputation, let alone his word, when nbc announced that the tonight show staffers had been laid off because of the strike:

what a putz.

today was the last day for most of the 120 staffers on “the tonight show with jay leno,” who left with an early christmas bonus check and no guarantee of a job when the strike ended.

do we have a job when the strike ends? that’s what everyone keeps asking,” one former staffer said. “they’ve guaranteed no one a job. they just keep saying, ‘the letter explains it.”

that letter is a notice from nbc’s human resources department that says, “if your services are needed, we will contact you.”

“we haven’t heard from him since the second or third day of the strike,” the former staffer said. “he called on speakerphone while we were in our daily meeting and said, ‘don’t look for other jobs , no one’s going to lose their house, we’ll get though this.’ two weeks ago, we got the heads up that we had two more weeks (of pay) and that’s it. everyone wondered, ‘is jay going to come through?’ and nothing happened. conan makes less and he said, ‘i’m going to pay for my people.’" ...
the bbc has more: “tv network nbc confirmed the job losses without providing further details as to how many people had been affected. the show had to start showing repeats when the strike began on 5 november and leno supported the picket lines…

update: it looks like leno will pay some cash after all.

this just in: jay leno will now indeed pay “tonight show” staffers their salaries through at least next week. according to a source close to the show, leno plans to extend the pay (to around 100 staffers) on a week-by-week basis, with the hope that a strike will be settled soon….insiders say leno was caught off guard by the heavy dose of criticism. according to a source close to the show, the christmas bonuses handed out by leno on friday (believed to be $100 times the number of years a recipient has been on staff) were never meant to be in lieu of a paycheck…read on
we are not surprised. leno has supported the repubbblican agenda since taking over from johnny.

we suppose money does that to you. altho both conan and letterman are still paying their staffs.

erratum: a commentor on c&l insists that jay leno has identified himself in an interview as a democrat. and we found this piece by nikki finke where jay calls himself a liberal. we do want everyone to be clear that it was nbc/universal who fired the tonight show staffers, and not jay himself.

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posted by skippy at 3:21 PM |

6 Comments:

skip, this strike is looking to be worse than 88. it's going to get real ugly. i took some hope from having the talks re-open but the producers are still talking from some other planet than the one where the rest of us live. as i see it things look a lot like they did when the musicians struck vegas back in the 80's. before, when the mob ran the town, there was a casino ethic that included show folks. then steve wynn and his soul less corporate types came in and they had more money than all of us combined. they also didn't care if there was a wasteland left at the end. we lost. we lost that strike, and we lost one more city where a musician can be a self supporting member of society.

i hope that doesn't happen here, but the suits i've seen calling themselves "producers" aren't show folks. just sayin' dude.
commented by Blogger The Minstrel Boy, 8:20 PM PST  
personally i have always been of the opinion that this will be a long and bloody strike...because the producers are intent on busting not only the writers guild, but every other union in town, to keep all the money from future internet profits for themselves.
commented by Blogger skippy, 9:10 PM PST  
Jay should buy everyone on his staff one of these for xmas:


http://www.shelflifeclothing.com/shirtpages/latenight.html
commented by Blogger Brian, 11:02 AM PST  
JAY LENO a Dem??? After the hack job he did on Kerry when Kerry was foolish enough to emulate the terminator and throw his hat in the ring on Jay's show... I'll never believe Leno's a liberal and a dem. Never.
commented by Blogger SB Gypsy, 11:39 AM PST  
Yeah, he might be a weak Dem, but he's not really liberal. Most of all, I can't forgive his shameless trashing of the Dixie Chicks. It was pandering, often vile, and he did it repeatedly.
commented by Blogger Batocchio, 3:50 PM PST  
Oh, and right on, Skip, to both you and Joss on the rest.
commented by Blogger Batocchio, 3:52 PM PST  

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