In responce to "The studios won't pay for one of them, but they will pay for all of them.": Think about what you are saying though. Basically you are saying that each writer is worth the sum value of all writers. This simply isn't true, not every writer is on equal footing much less worth the sum of all writers. Plain and simply, if they are truly worth the value they think they are worth, then someone should be willing to pay them that value. This is not a hard concept, a product/service is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Nothing more nothing less.

The idea that a product/service is worth the value you can force someone to pay by not only removing their access to the supply you are selling but also access to any supply being sold is ridiculous. And in this case I am sure if the "guild" weren't ruining the careers of people who break their strike the studios would be happy to hire on new writers in their place.

Which brings me to the next point which is, if you don't feel you have an informed opinion on the situation I have to question why you are taking strong positions. I understand that you may not have been aware of this, but if that is the case you should do the research before persisting in your viewpoint.

With that in mind, the ability of the guilds to make and break hollywood careers is nothing new and I am rather shocked you haven't heard of this before.

You do understand that this is renegotiation of contracts that happens every 3 years right? This isn't them all of a sudden getting upset, this is a standard 3 year negotiation and every 3 years they do this there is a lot of screaching from the writers over this issue.

As for the people who have money and the people who don't. You have completely missed the point. I am not drawing skillful comparisons between people who manage money and people who write. What I am saying is that there are far more people who have writing skill than their are people who have $40 million to spare. And thus the guy with $40 million is far more valuable to the production of a movie than any writer, director, or actor.

On the subject of replacing the writers, the reason is simple and one I have stated before. All writers join the guild. The enter into a an agreement because to work in their industry they must be part of the guild. How is that hard to understand? I really think you are being obstinate on this point simply to avoid the enevitable conclusion that they do in fact have a monopoly on the industry. And as you would say, ignoring that point would be amoral.

Which leads me to that point of contention. What I am saying is not amoral or immoral. Expecting people to pay more than something is worth simply because a large group of people who have lots of that something to provide want it to be that value is not a moral solution. Its a solution that provides for the needs of one group but not the other. The reason capatalism as a system works is because the moral issues are intrinsic to the system. Thus it is a stable economy with competitive jobs producing great results. The fact that each party is entitled to determine the value of what he is purchasing controls the pricing. If a fruit vendor believes apples are $45 a piece he will not sell as many apples as the vendor selling for $0.35. Is it amoral or immoral for us to ignore the complaints of that vendor and force the price to be $45? Is it not the right of the customer to choose the value? How is that any different than this situation? You are allowing basic emotions combined with a woefully incomplete view of the situation to dictate your opinions. This situation is larger than the concerns of just the writers and this morality viewpoint you are taking is only looking at it from their perspective. 8 fruit vendors selling their apples for $45 should not be able to shut down the vendor selling his apples for $0.35. That just doesn't make sense!

Finally, I want to point out that this situation is extremely complex and goes beyond the writers. If the Studios give in to the WGA then all of a sudden the SAG and DGA will expect similar concession when their current contracts expire (July '08). So any concession made to the writers is also a concession made to the Actors and Directors. This whole thing is a vicious cycle of "Well the Actors/Directors make a ton, we should get more!"...followed by "You gave the writers more so we want more!".

@sqrl -
1. I admit, I was mostly approaching this from my abstract takes on Unions, contracts, etc. and applying it to what details I knew about it, with some sporadic research. I tend to be fairly well informed, but this was clearly not one of those situations. I still haven't had time to do a lot of research, sadly - I just got back around to checking this thread.

2. However I will respond to a couple points. First of all, if writers are a dime a dozen, why can't the studios just give the finger to the entire union? This was the point I was trying to make before - if these writers are so invaluable, why doesn't the MPAA (or whatever front they're negotiating with) say "we're blacklisting you, you're fired, end of story, we're never hiring you again"? They have that power, and that would, in one blow, demolish both the guild and its powers. The answer is obvious - they don't think these writers are replaceable.

3. I didn't mean to accuse of being immoral - I meant to accuse you of being amoral. Amoral may have negative connotations to you, but I think it's standard for people who focus on the ways in which capitalism works rather than the global issues with capitalism. Your analogy with apples in inherently flawed, and doesn't refute my point, because you'd have to involve wages in some way - if the people selling the apples for 35 cents pay their workers almost nothing, then the workers have a right to tell them that they won't work for them. Which is, of course, an amoral response. A moral response would involve how much of the profit should go where, but you, for better or for worse, don't seem that interested in discussing that point.





Regardless of points about whether or not non-WGA members can work in this situation, the vote in favor of this was a landslide: "The new-media issue has united the 12,000-member union, whose membership recently authorized a strike with 90 percent of the vote."
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/columnists/aaron_barnhart/story/348222.html

That means that 9/10 of all writers in hollywood, think the situation was unfair. I'd say that, regardless of the guild's power, that greatly undermines the argument that, in this particular case, they're abusing it. It's a pretty clear statement that these writers, who, as a group, the industry doesn't think can be replaced, as a group, think that they're not getting their fair share. And thus as a group, they're doing a fair strike.

I've also now done a bit of searching on the WGA's blacklisting, and most of the results had to do with McCarthyism, and the actual studios blacklisting people, not the WGA, who just agreed that, in general, it could be done. I've found no other evidence that they can prevent people from working directly.

This article provides, I think, a more coherent reason as to why scabs won't work in this situation:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117975545.html?categoryid=2821&cs=1

Which points less to a big-bad-soul-eating-union and more to human nature.

So I guess point 1. is no longer entirely accurate :).

And I did know about the 3 year contract, just as an fyi.

 "Which brings me to the next point which is, if you don't feel you have an informed opinion on the situation I have to question why you are taking strong positions. I understand that you may not have been aware of this, but if that is the case you should do the research before persisting in your viewpoint."

 That was unnecessarily snarky, given that I said as much myself.

@#2,

The answer isn't that they don't think the writers are replaceable its that they don't particularly feel the need to commit PR suicide. If you fire an entire association of people, one which has friendships throughout the business and with many of the other people you work with in your productions there is going to be a lot of backlash. Particularly from the SAG & DGA who feel that they are possibly next to go. None of this even begins to delve into public perception which is fairly important as well. Quite simply the bargaining power of the writers is far more than just their value as writers it is also the damage they can cause the industry should they choose to be...unpleasant...do you think that is a fair bargaining chip? I don't.

@#3 ,

I didn't take it as an accusation of being immoral.

As for your dismissal of my apples analogy, I think you argument is actually flawed. A writer does not have employees much like an apple vendor does not have employees. So that point is moot. The Vendor represents the writer and the apples the writings. In this scenario the apples cost the vendor nothing but their time and they recieve all of the money (barring any agreements they might have with agents etc...).

But if we were to assume that the workers did work in the analogy then yes the workers should be able to quit. What the workers shouldn't be able to do is prevent the vendor from hiring any other workers.

This discussion of how much profit should go where is insanity. Following the analogy without workers further this would be like the vendor getting upset with the person who buys the apples because they took the apples and combined it with their personal secret recipe and made fantastic apple pie. And because that apple pie tastes great and people are willing to pay a lot of money for that pie the vendor now wants more money for his apples. But not only does he want more money but he forms a group of vendors that try to control the price of apples and they prevent anyone else from starting apple stands unless they adhere to their pricing schedule.

Now realise I am not saying that writers should never get a portion of the profits, what I am saying is that there should not be a deal that across the board gaurantees all writers a portion of the profits. It should be based on the writer and the value of their work. And any writer who actually wants a portion of the profits but is not offered should invest some of their money into the project and they will recieve their share of the profits. It also shows that they are confident in their work. Granted not every project is going to allow them to invest, some will, some won't. Its up to the person who is forming the project.

Onto the WGA landslide: Given the political views of the majority of Hollywood, and the fact that they stand to gain from this position I really don't see how a landslide vote is indicative of anything other than a group of people who want a collective pay raise. Who doesn't want a pay raise?

As for your Variety link, you do realise who variety is right? They cover hollywood movies and a lot of their staff are writers who want to be movie writers. Not exactly the best source, but they do raise good points. I just don't see anything there to say that the reason provided is the exclusive reason.

And finally, the comment you found snarky wasn't intended as such. I am just blunt by nature when debating. And I do want to point out a sentence you may have missed ..."I understand that you may not have been aware of this, but if that is the case you should do the research before persisting in your viewpoint". The sentence was basically saying, you may not have been aware of the activity coming into the discussion but you should do the research before continuing to defend your position.

PS - I wanted to also point out that typically a writer is given a script to rewrite as their job. A lot of the scriptwriter's job in hollywood is redoing other work to suit what the studio wants the vibe of the picture to be. My point here is that they aren't exactly doing a bunch of creative work. When a writer does write a new movie script he can usually sell it to one of the studios or attempt to raise capital to shoot it themselves. In most cases they sell it and recieve anywhere from 100k to as much as 5m. I will also add that these numbers are based in my limited experience and knowledge of the industry so take it for what its worth.