3121 Inbox: Tonight Show Nonwriting Staff Laid Off

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3121 Inbox: Tonight Show’ Nonwriting Staff Laid Off (http://www.3121.com/blog/?p=125)

By LYNN ELBER, from the AP (http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/11/30/1133174-tonight-show-nonwriting-staff-laid-off)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nonwriting staff members of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” became the latest casualties of the four-week Hollywood writers strike when they were laid off Friday.
NBC confirmed the layoffs at the show without providing further details. The show went into reruns when the strike began on Nov. 5 and Leno honored the picket lines.
NBC had been covering the salaries of the nonwriting staffers. Conan O’Brien has promised to cover the salaries of about 75 nonstriking “Late Night” staffers next week.
The layoffs came as the Writers Guild of America mulled a new contract offer. Negotiations were recessed until Tuesday.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said it was willing to offer $130 million in extra pay over the life of the proposed three-year deal along with the $1.3 billion writers already receive each year.
The Writers Guild of America countered that the offer amounted to a “massive rollback.”
Posted by 3121 ~ 3121 Inbox (http://www.3121.com/blog/?cat=9)

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I'm not exactly sure why they posted this. Usually you would expect Prince to side with the writers, as they are trying to fight for similar rights that Prince has commented on in the past.

In this case he is showing the effect the strike is having on other staff. The strike is very unpopular with non writing staff as they have been getting laid off over the past few weeks, they haven't been able to get any alternate work due to the strike, and due to the nature of the job, they are normally contracted or salaried, so they don't receive royalties in perpetuality for their work unlike the writers and actors.

As such, the strike is badly affecting non writing staff from cameramen to props builders, and of course affecting their families, and is causing real issues to many of them. There can be approximately 100 non writing staff involved in a regular tv show, so thats a lot of people out of work because the small number of writers involved in a show want a royalty increase for dvd releases. (It's not uncommon for the shrink wrap and outer packaging of a release to cost more than the writer gets in royalties).

In order to write for almost any show in America it's essential to become a member of the writers guild, which is why the strike has become so hard hitting and so unpopular between the non writing staff and their families. Unfortunately the media doesn't seem to be presenting this issue very clearly (I wonder why :rolleyes: ) although staff have been documenting the issues on blog sites. A show with 3 writers refusing to work results in 100 people losing jobs and being unable to work and earn an income, and those staff normally aren't paid all that great in the first place, but do it for the love of the job, so they don't have huge savings to dip into.

Hopefully Prince can see the flip side to the royalty arguement. Most people are paid once for the work they do, and aren't paid in perpetuality, whereas the organisations they work for may well do. Why should musicians and other artists and writers be treated the same, particularly when they are regularly paid much more than those who don't?