Newly Militant Writers Guild Still On The Attack
About a month ago, a Writers Guild guerrilla squad stormed a breakfast panel of unsuspecting networks executives, demanding better treatment for reality show writers and ushering in a new, militant era at the WGA (and the birth of Subservient Donald). Today's LAT reports that while some in the Guild question trying to humiliate the very people they need to face at the negotiating table, new Guild executive director David Young, who earned his union bona fides with decidedly more blue-collar groups such as garment workers and carpenters, is ready for a grind:
Young said the reality TV protests would continue as long as networks and producers refused to meet to discuss the issue with guild officials, who gathered signatures of more than 1,000 reality writers, producers and editors seeking union representation. Young also has been applying pressure through lawsuits alleging that writers worked under sweatshop-like conditions, which their employers deny.
Young said he knew his tactics wouldn't produce instant results. Instead, he hopes to wear down the networks and studios."It's not a death blow," he acknowledged. "It's pain inflicted through a thousand small cuts."
Young's next, and potentially controversial, move is to dispatch small teams of reality writers (dressed as plumbers both as a disguise and to show solidarity with their hardworking brethren) to stake out the bathrooms of the networks' alternative programming departments, and when an opening presents itself, beset vulnerable executives, apply demoralizing swirlies until their victims admit through the roar of a flushing toilet that the writers deserve overtime pay. Some may drown, but such is the price of progress.
