AMPTP does the math, comes up with...

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers today issued the following statement:

"It's official: The people in charge at the WGA have led working writers into a strike that has now cost those working writers more in salary and benefits than the WGA's organizers ever expected to gain from the strike. And the strike continues because the union's leaders are focused on jurisdictional issues that would expand their own power, at the expense of the new media issues that working writers care most about.

"For more information, and to see how the WGA strike has now cost working writers more than they had hoped to get through the WGA’s $151 million proposal package, go to www.amptp.org."

(Editor's note: To be clear, that's the AMPTP's calculation of how much writers have lost in wages and benefits over eight weeks compared with the cost of the WGA's proposed package over three years. That seems something less than compelling to me, but hey, it's their press release. -- dh)

Comments

[I don't get it]

Doesn't this just make the guild's proposal that much more reasonable?

[C. A. Bridges]

They're also missing an important element: the cost to the writers over the next 20 years if they give in to the AMPTP's half-finished "offer."

[JK]

Good point, Bridges. Does that mean that if the strike causes more harm than the writers can recoup in 20 years that no matter the outcome of the strike it is a failure?

[Jack]

Or half of the projects could just dry up and half of the writers today will be cutting grass tomorrow. Hire freelance writers

[Bill]

Oh my god, JK and Jack on the same thread! It's a party, woo-hoo! JK how are you, how was your Xmas? Sorry if it was bad because of the strike, mine was too. You know what? Maybe you're right, JK. We should just let the producers give us any deal they want. After all, they have our best interest in mind, right? Besides, unions are always fighting for such silly things. Like weekends off, or pensions, or health care, you know, all the stuff executives quickly give themselves but not their workers. We should just start our own companies, like Jack suggests in another thread. JK, have you met Jack? You guys would really hit it off, you're both old souls, and by that I mean anachronistic corporate stooges! Anyway, good luck with your respective "PR" campaigns on scribevibe. I have to go line up some lawns to mow -- thanks for the suggestion, Jack! You're aces!