Just back from doing something I haven't done since 1988: Picketing. My first thirteen years as a member of the Writers Guild of America, West found me pounding pavement three separate times…or was it four? Whatever it was, we were striking more than some of us were working. In the '88 strike, I even got involved with helping to organize the picketing and the demonstrations.
When I have more time, I'll write more about why we had to strike then, why we haven't had to strike since, and why I fear next year will be the greatest year of Labor Unrest that Hollywood has ever seen. At the moment though, the immediate battle is over the "reality" show, America's Next Top Model. As explained here, its writers are seeking to be recognized as writers and to have the WGA recognized as their collective bargaining representative.
This morning, maybe a thousand WGA members — most of them clad in red WGA t-shirts — assembled at Pan Pacific Park, which is more or less adjacent to what they used to call, at the start of many a CBS show, "Television City in Hollywood." (It's not really in Hollywood and neither is anything done at NBC Studios in Burbank. But when you're on television, you're allowed to lie…at least about things like that.) We heard about an hour of speeches by our leaders, by prominent writers in the industry and by the striking "reality show" writers. Then we marched around the CBS building, effectively picketing the people waiting to go into a taping of The Price is Right.
I have to go off and do things this afternoon so I'm going to have to serialize this post and continue it later. But I have to say before departing that I was enormously impressed with, first of all, my Guild's organization of the event. Everything we did wrong or were unable to do in '88 from the standpoint of logistics and physical set-up, they did right this morning. Secondly, the mood was strong, the unity was almost tangible and the members who turned out — many of whom seemed too young to have been involved in earlier strikes — seemed to not only "get" what it was all about but to ready to march for any just cause. I sure felt better about the future for having been there today. I'll write more about why that is later today.