Flyingmonkey1223, I won't flame you for your uneducated comments (wow, I just flamed you anyway) but instead suggest that you take the time to visit either The Huffington Post or United Hollywood and read some of their very knowledgeable writing on the subject.
As a WGA member for 20 years, I can guarantee you this is a battle worth fighting and at least 60% of the country seems to agree with us.
If it is necessary to lose the rest of this year's television season, the Globes, the Oscars and even next season, we are prepared to do this. And why? Because this isn't just a battle for "a few dollars more" but a battle for our survival as creative individuals.
The television series and films (and the plays and musicals) we all enjoy come from the creative minds of a small group of writers who spend years, sometimes decades honing their craft and developing their scrips. The average gestation period for a movie is four-to-seven years. During most of that period, the writer is working on spec, or on about 10% - 20% of the fee he will get paid IF the film get made (and most commissioned screenplays do not get filmed).
In television, the writer is paid a script fee and a bonus of almost as much again for the network reruns. But the networks have stopped rerunning most shows and instead now make them available "on demand" online - for which they propose to pay us $250.00 a YEAR for the rights. That means we would lose $19,750 per episode. The average writer is lucky to get a single episode a season, the lucky ones two or three at the most.
In addition, our health benefits are paid for by adding an proportional fee on each script (with matching deductions from the writer - you know, the guy who just lost $19,750.00 per script). So suddenly, with this new formula, there's no funding for health care and that is unacceptable.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, pal. The studios and networks are trying to destroy our unions so they can treat us like the third world employees their parent corporations are already taking advantage of in most of the other wings of the company. The one saving grace for writers and actors is that, aside from Canada and The UK, there are very few places the big media can go to get English speaking actors and writers.
But I fear "Olaf's Love Affair at Euro Disney" is already being developed offshore as a contingency.
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=972787#3631451
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=963561#3533883
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=955158#3440952
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=954269#3427915
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=955012#3441622
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=954344#3428699