Life on Queen Street

I did my time on the line in 2002, when the Ontario Public Employees Union went on strike to keep the government of the day from completely disemboweling the provincial public service. Despite an E Coli contamination of public drinking water in the Town of Walkerton that killed eight people and sickened hundreds that was directly linked to public service cuts to Environment Ministry inspection staff made by the government of the day, we had a bitch of a time getting anyone in the province to give a shit. Eight weeks we shivered on that picket line, finally coming back to a deal that was better than the government's last pre-strike offer only by the thinnest of margins. But we remembered on election day and, when the ballots were counted, that government was history. Due in no small part to the direct action of our union and our union brothers and sisters in other areas of the public sector.

Unlike public servants, the Writers Guild of America won't get the chance to vote out their employers/oppressors but at least they've got the public on their side. Unlike the handful of folks bitching about not being able to renew their driver's licences, every-damn-body wants they're prime-time TV back. Life was just getting good and, I swear to God, if I don't get the last 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I will go down to NBC-Universal's corporate headquarters and launch a picket of my own. Unlike public servants or the folks on the line down at Ford or even garbage collectors, the WGA strike is taking away something people not only care about but like (we care about garbage collection - few people write poetry about it, however). Moreover, they're writers and what do 12,000 unemployed writers do with their time? Write about how they're not working.

There's no question that the WGA is winning the war for the hearts and minds. Worse, from the studio's point of view, has to be that they're winning it on the Internet. Every time someone visits UnitedHollywood.com or watches a strike-related parody on youtube, they're proving the lie of the AMPTP argument that the Internet is too new, too untested to share revenue with the writers, directors and actors who make their product.

For this union girl, it is a beautiful think to behold. For the AMPTP, not so much. Thus yesterday's two press releases, saying, essentially, "the writers are making fun of us and holding rallies on their picket lines! HOW DARE THEY MOCK US AND/OR PUBLICIZE THEIR STRIKE. SEE? THEY ARE EVIL, EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!!!!"

The fact that these releases were generated by the same firm of PR genii who didn't make sure their clients had all the domain names related to their organization locked down prior to the commencement of labour action, only sweetens it.

Now, I don't think this actually means jack shit in terms of negotiations or when I'm likely to see a new episode of Life (fuck you very much, AMPTP). But in the long-run, it does make me wonder what some of these working relationships are going to be like when the strike does, inevitably, end. On the Internet front, the big names have just as much, if not more to lose than the rank-and-file, and the current AMPTP strategy of pissing on the WGA's leg with regards to 'new' media (dude, if I'm downloading TV on iTunes, it is no longer fucking new) can't be winning them any friends. $250 per episode, per year and nothing for "promotional" use is not a serious offer and everyone knows it. Not when "promotional" online screening of TV episodes are pegged to generate $120 million for networks this year.

Right now, it's looking like this one isn't going to be settled for a long, long time.