So it appears that my strike post struck…heh…a chord. And even though I probably disagree with ALL OF YOU, I’m very grateful for the feedback. I guess my beef with the WGA comes down to this:

The WGA strike rules include “Do not deliver or submit any literary material or any documents to a struck company” and “Inform the Guild of the name of any writer you have reason to believe is engaged in any strike breaking activity or scab writing.”

Scab writing. My issues with the WGA are more than just this strike, though. Have you ever read about the screenwriting credit system? According to wikipedia:

Upon completion of a film, the producer must present the proposed credits for screenwriting to the guild. If any of the writers object or if credit is to be assigned to a producer or director of the film who rewrote someone else’s screenplay the Guilds require the parties to compile drafts of the screenplays and an account of their work on each. This information is submitted to arbitration by a panel of three members of the Guild, which renders a decision.

Only three writers may be credited for the screenplay if they collaborated and a maximum of three teams of three may be credited no matter how many actually worked on it.

Now…in total fairness, I spent a few minutes reading up on the WGA and what they do for their members. I can appreciate that the union provides insurance and pensions and negotiates royalties on behalf of individuals. But I can’t imagine submitting my work for the approval of an organization who had no participation in the creation of it.

Did I mention that this whole post reeks of blatant hypocrisy for me? Because I was once a member of a teacher’s union? But in all fairness, I only joined because I had a dream that I slapped a kid. I saw the dream as a vision from God that I needed legal back-up in the classroom. The dream wasn’t prophetic, fortunately. I never slapped a kid. Yet.

So this is the part where I’ll drop the union thing and we can all agree to disagree. I’d probably see things differently if I was working for a living, instead of eating fun-sized Almond Joys and yelling at the kids that I’ll ‘be right there’ to oversee their work. When I’m really just typing this post out and getting distracted by random articles on Wikipedia.

I wish I had a union to defend my right to get distracted by random articles on Wikipedia.

And to eat fun-sized Almond Joys.

PS - Will, the boy is sick. No school for him. I still get credit for teaching him, right?

************

UPDATE:

One more thing, then I’m done, FOR REALZ.

In a show of solidarity with his fellow scribes, the Daily Show host has told his writing staff that he will cover all their salaries for the next two weeks, according to a well-placed source. He has also vowed to do the same for writers on The Colbert Report. A Comedy Central spokesman referred my inquiry about this to Stewart’s personal publicist, who has yet to respond.

This, to me, is an example of why unions, as a whole, don’t work. The Daily Show writers should be able to act as independent entities, based on their own value, to negotiate for themselves. Or through their agents or whatever. Even if Jon Stewart isn’t actually going to pay his writers’ salaries, and the whole story is based on rumor and conjecture, the point is that the writers are valued for their work, not for belonging to a group.

The End.

Peace. I’m out.