Collateral Damage of Strike Begins

Jay-Leno-StrikeWe all knew it was coming, and really it already started a while ago, but the collateral damage of the current writers strike is really starting to be felt in Hollywood. If the writers aren’t writing, then that means productions aren’t happening, which means people who aren’t writers are going to lose their jobs since there’s no work for them to do.

This week, the crew and staff of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno got laid off, and they’re not happy about it.

“We haven’t heard from [Jay Leno] 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 120 people are out of work now, with no guarantees that they’ll get their jobs back when the strike is over.

The WGA just turned down the most recent offer made by the producers association which prolongs the strike even more while other people lose their jobs (to be fair, the offer the Producers made might have been crap and needed to be turned down… but the result is the same either way).

On a more positive note, it at least looks like both sides in the strike are starting to make concessions… maybe not enough, but it is a step in the right direction and hopefully this thing can get sorted out before too much longer… and before too many other people start loosing their livelihoods.

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8 thoughts on “Collateral Damage of Strike Begins

  1. Interesting argument, but analogy stinks. I don’t know why the writers used residuals as a way to earn more money, I think the issue is that the writers are not being compensated enough for their work and they saw the studios making big bucks on the DVD’s and they, the writers, missed out on that source of revenue. I think the writers are just pointing out there are additional avenues of revenue, beyond the original show the writers and the studio made money on and why shouldn’t they, the creators participate? The studios are greedy PIGS.

  2. All sounds kinda selfish on the writer’s part to me, causing people to get fired. Then again, I know nothing about what I’m talking about nor do I know why they went on strike in the first place. I hate reading.

  3. Leno should auction off some of his many, many cars and motorcycles to pay his staff IMO. They deserve some respect. He doesn’t run The Tonight Show by himself.

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