We 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.
