> I'm only mildly less excited by the writers strike as I would be to see
> shareholders fighting for larger dividends.
>
> John Thornton
If a group of textile workers got paid piece rate or percentages, would you say the same thing if they asked for more per piece? What is your exact reason for saying the above?
Do you know that even though residuals in new media is the main issue in this strike there are also other issues -- for instance solidarity with other unions and organizing the unorganized. Do these other issues "excite" you a little?
Yes, the current "intellectual property" regime is basically state sanctioned monopoly that has little connection with the origninal purpose of copyright. In this sense it is unjust, but no strike anywhere is going to in itself change basic inequities in a system. Because the WGA is in fight for a better deal for the people who actually work and create you should be excited by this strike, or at least interested in the issues of the strike. Because corporations are on a campaign to monopolize creative work for themselves; because they believe that their "intellectual property" is theirs alone, and any encroachment is a trespass that needs to be fought; and because coroporate monopolization and expanstion of IP is the pattern for all industries involved in producing "intellectual" "property", this strike should at least be interesting to you.
The WGA is not a radical union out to change the basis of the IP regime. In the past 70 years the writers' union leadership has at times been radical, at times reactionary, and at times (as it is today) a union in the forefront of the union movement. I came to the left and one of the first things I learned when I was 12 or 13 is that you support unions on strike and you don't cross picket lines. If workers jobs are threatened you are for them and are interested in them. If a union is trying to organize the unorganized your reaction was enthusiasm and not a comparison with stockholders of a corporation. If a union put in its contract demands elimination of the "No Strike" clause we cheered as if it were a radical step. (In fact in all the interim agreements made so far, part of the contract is words to the effect that "workers covered by this contract will not be disciplined for honoring the picket lines of fellow workers".) All of this should get your blood running just a little.
I would think those of us on the left would be even a little excited by the fact that a very small union is fighting some of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world.and doing a pretty good job of it Or excited even by the fact that we have seen pro-strike, pro-union propaganda produced with wit and charm. (If the TWU could get some of the current strikers to produce similar propaganda the transit strike a couple years ago would certainly have been better fought.)
I don't mean to go overboard with my enthusiasm, but there are a few things significant in this strike and I have tried to express them.
To put it mildly, anyone who supports a stronger and better union movement should be enthusiastic about many aspects of thias strike.
(I am just assuming John, that most of the people on this list support a stronger and better union movement. For the detailed issues of this strike all I can do is refer you to the weblog "United Hollywood". For a larger perspective on the strike unfortunately I have not come across leftists who have written about it. This has been disappointing. But I have written myself on the issues and in other posts have referred to some other writers who have written on the issues.)
Jerry Monaco
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