Good article in the L.A. Weekly about the ongoing (and unfortunately rancorous) attempts by the Writers Guild of America, West to organize animation writers at Nickelodeon. (Here's the link.) My sympathies are about 110% with the writers, natch, and I spent many years of my life working with the WGAw on earlier attempts.
During those efforts, we found that sentiment among animation writers was nearly unanimous. Apart from one or two who probably (one, admittedly) sought to court favor with their employers by offering token resistance, all who wrote cartoons wanted desperately to have the WGA represent them. To understand why, one only has to work, as I and others have, for the same company with and without WGA coverage. I wrote live-action for Disney and animation for Disney and, believe me, it was like the difference between being treated as a person and as some sort of low-grade industrial droid.
It is not, as some might believe, merely a matter of money. I would say it has more to do with simple human decency with regard to business dealings. When you work under the WGA contract, it's a lot less likely that they're going to waste your time and get you to spend days thinking up or even writing up ideas for projects that are not going to go forward. There is a reasonably-mature mechanism in place to deal with business disputes that may arise. You are reasonably assured of getting proper credit for your work. (I could go on and on…)
Having put in my time in the salt mines of union organizing, and suffered considerable losses (both personal and financial) for it, I have opted to curtail my activism in the current crusades. However, in case it matters to anyone reading this, I — like just about everyone else who's ever written a cartoon — am firmly on the side of the Writers Guild. And I doubt that anyone on either side seriously doubts they will prevail. The folks at Nick know the WGA will triumph; they just want to get as many shows as possible done before that happens.