First, understand that I consider myself to be a "revisionist' when it comes to politics or just matters in general like this. If you tried it and it's not working? Man up, head back to the drawing board and start over. I mean really, if it's a disaster (like healthcare in America) or you need to lop off a dead limb (like the Electorial College) than just do it, no one will miss it and we'll all be better off for it. So I'm all for a good strike when arbitration breaks down and the strikers need better conditions.
Secondly I'm a pretty liberal person. I don't believe in censorship by governments or groups, it's none of your business what I read, watch or do as long as no one is hurt.
Having said this....I'm not a huge lover of the modern strike. I know it seems like a person like me would be rushing down to the picket lines with Krisy Kremes in hand but ...not so much usually. Why?
Let's be honest, this isn't turn of the century Industrial Age America. I know there are still plenty of illegal sweat shops out there and other extremely ugly working conditions that should be shut down and fined and the owners sent to jail. Or let's turn our attention to neglectful foster parents. Or shine the spotlight on the incredibly under funded homeless shelters which offer NO housing at all for single fathers with children. Or let's spend our time trying to figure out how to help the 'throw away' kids that are runaways between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one that are still in the 'foster care' system but are living on the streets because they no longer have a home to go to. You know as runaways these kids have no birth certificates or drivers license and therefore can't get jobs, right?
So we're not talking about six year olds breathing coal dust and working twenty hours a day. The modern day strike is all about money. And generally by people who are making a lot of moeny but somehow feel they need more money. If you make $400,000 a year and are on strike for more? Shut up. Let's check out a few strikes that occurred around me.
2006 Delta Pilots Strike
This more then any other represented the very height of stupidity.
Delta spokesman Bruce Hicks said that the average pilot pay at the airline was $157,000 last year. That's after the one-third pay cut they agreed to in 2004, but is not affected by the additional pay cut agreed to in December. The number is inflated by the fact that staff cuts have left Delta with no pilots with less than five years seniority. But some senior pilots at Delta made more than $300,000 in 2005, according to Hicks
The pilots union, which represents about 6,000 active and 500 furloughed pilots at the bankrupt airline, agreed to about a one-third cut in their pay in October 2004, but 11 months later rising fuel prices and continued weakness in fares led the airline to file for bankruptcy court protection, the same day that competitor Northwest Airlines also filed.
Here's the thing. When your business is in bankruptcy, you don't ask for a raise. Now I realize that the pilots got their panties in a wad when they had to take the pay cut in the first round in 2004. I understand that sucks but Delta pilots are the HIGEST paid in the industry. And does anyone REALLY notice any significant difference in flying Delta and say, Air-Tran? Thought not. Actually every time I fly Delta I get attitude from everyone from the curbside baggage guys who actually DEMAND tips before you can open your wallet, to the flight attendants who act like they're trying to detox off of heroine they are so rude and am treated to a display of organizational skills that would make a chicken roll its eyes. How does striking and therefore putting the very business you are striking against out of business make sense? If someone goes on strike and there are no jobs to go back to, did anyone really go one strike or did they just elect to downsize themselves?
I grew up with a number of children of Delta pilots. If you can afford to give your four kids sports cars, send them to private school and buy them a Rolex for high school graduation? Shut up.
So who would have gotten burned? How about the ticketing agents, the gate agents, the baggage handlers, the ground crew, the food service companies, the people who teach and work at the training facility? Yeah.
1994 Baseball Strike (my husband will most likely divorce me over this one)
Now in 1994 players were not necessarily making the ridiculous overinflated salaries they are now for throwing balls around that many do these days. I know some of the young players had to take career sidetracking jobs to support their families. Some worked in auto body shops, some painted house…whatever skill they had before baseball they put to use. But again, the big boys were fine. In 1994, the average MLB salary was an estimated $1.2 million. This was for a player who was good and in long standing. This was not the farm team guy.
The 232-day strike, which lasted from August 12, 1994, to April 2, 1995, led to the cancellation of 938 games overall, including the entire 1994 postseason and World Series.
Owners demanded a salary cap in response to the worsening financial situation in baseball (i.e. keep expenditure down). Ownership claimed that small-market clubs would fall by the wayside unless teams agreed to share local broadcasting revenues (to increase equity amongst the teams) and enact a salary cap, a proposal that the players adamantly opposed. On January 18, 1994, the owners approved a new revenue-sharing plan keyed to a salary cap, which required the players’ approval. The following day, the owners amended the Major League agreement by giving complete power to the commissioner on labor negotiations.
The dispute was played out with a backdrop of years of hostility and mistrust between the two sides. What arguably stood in the way of a compromise settlement was the absence of an official commissioner ever since the owners forced Fay Vincent to resign in September 1992. Vincent described the situation this way: "The Union basically doesn’t trust the Ownership because collusion was a $280 million theft by Bud Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf of that money from the players. I mean, they rigged the signing of free agents. They got caught. They paid $280 million to the players. And I think that’s polluted labor relations in baseball ever since it happened. I think it’s the reason Fehr has no trust in Selig." [1] Incidentally, on February 11, 1994, the owners greatly reduced the commissioner's power to act in "the best interests of baseball."
Owner representative Richard Ravitch officially unveiled the ownership proposal on June 14, 1994. The proposal would guarantee a record $1 billion in salary and benefits. But the ownership proposal also would have forced clubs to fit their payrolls into a more evenly based structure. Salary arbitration would have been eliminated, free agency would begin after four years rather than six, and owners would have retained the right to keep a four or five year player by matching his best offer. Owners claimed that their proposal would raise average salaries from $1.2 million in 1994 to $2.6 million by 2001.
Major League Baseball Players Association leader Donald Fehr rejected the offer from the owners on July 18. Fehr believed that a salary cap was simply a way for owners to clean up their own disparity problems with no benefit to the players. Many observers believed the strike put Fehr in over his head.
On July 13, 1993, Fehr said that if serious negotiations between the players and the owners did not begin soon, the players could have gone out on strike in September of that year, threatening the postseason. On December 31, 1993, Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement ran out with no new agreement yet signed.
Okay, you got all that? I cut it directly from Wiki so there's a good chance it's at least 80% accurate.
So a fabulous agreement was reached and….
On Opening Day in 1995, three men, who were each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the word "Greed", leaped onto the field at Shea Stadium and tossed more than $150 in $1 bills at players. In Cincinnati, one fan paid for a plane to fly over Riverfront Stadium that dragged a sign reading "Players and Owners — To Hell With You" The meager crowds at the openers often booed at the players for their rusty fundamentals, shoddy defense, and in response to frequent high-scoring contests. Fans in Pittsburgh disrupted Opening Day by throwing sticks on the field, and holding up the action for 17 minutes. Despite just 6,300 fans at the New York Yankees' pre-opening workout, 50,245 showed up for the opener, the smallest opening crowd at Yankee Stadium since 1990.
So who suffered? Hmmmmm, the stadium workers? The people who owned the parking lots? The guys who sold MLB merchandise? Uniform providers? All the charities that had thrown their resources into fundraising by having a baseball player show up so they could charge $100 a person to eat with whomever?
Nice. Glad that worked out for you and you didn't have to compensate any of those people.
So again, here we are with a strike. The Writers Guild. And what are they striking for?
The guild said the networks are refusing to grant the unions jurisdiction over writing directly for new media and the right to offer promotional showings of movies and television shows in places like their websites without paying an additional fee. DVD residuals and download residuals are also on the table. Essentially, what's going on with payment when it's the media of the future we're talking about?
Okay, I can get behind the complaint. You wrote it. The stars wouldn't be stars without you. You want a bigger piece of the pie. Fine. But first, let's stop wearing damn Hermes scarves and our Gucci boots out there on the picket line. You shame yourselves.
The thing is Jay Leno can afford to take the time off. The production assistant guy who got fired yesterday at NBC since they shut down The Office stage does not. Damon Lindelof can pick up his little sign and trot all over the place because he's raking in huge bucks, even if Lost goes into reruns after the eight episodes they have in the can. The drivers who tote out all the lighting equipment? Not so much.
Does anyone on the picket line remember being a struggling writer? Remember sitting in their crap apartment overlooking the freeway and writing their little fingers to the bone on their PC between the two jobs they were working? Apparently not. I'm not saying they don't deserve what they're asking for. I'm saying that my compassion wanes when the less glamorous people start getting hurt.
The Foley guy doesn't want more money; he just wants to continue to put his kids through college. The craft services girl doesn't want more money; she's thrilled to be on the lot and just wants to be able to pay her car payment. The wardrobe people just want to do their gig and continue to help pay for Mom's nursing home stay. What about those people? The not Jay Lenos? The not Tina Feys? The ironic thing being that even if Numbers starts rerunning, the writers still get their residuals so they have steady income regardless of how long this drags out. The honey wagon driver? Mostly he just wants to have health insurance so his child on dialysis can get his treatments.
And then we have Ellen who is getting the shit kicked out of her for continuing to work. I have to agree with her original statement. People have come to see her show. People have had tickets for months. People have come from Idaho and Kentucky and Florida to sit in her audience. So is it fair to take this out on them? All they did was come and see the people they like. Why should some little old lady be told that she won't be able to see the taping of her favorite show, Family Feud?
Oh, and this sort of comment? Isn't helping. Although admittedly it was by one of the 'writers' of The View, arguably the most denigrating show on television that has set women back at least a hundred years.
Writers going on strike sounds like shepherds staging a walkout,” Mr. Smith said afterward. “The general public has no understanding of the issues that we are facing, but we are here because the producers will take as much as they can unless writers stand up for themselves.”
Yes, the general public are entirely too stupid to understand. Unfortunately many of us are actually too stupid to stop watching your hack show.
Strike? Sure, I'll grab a sign, toss on my Danskos and join you. Heaven knows I did my fair share of marching protests back in college. But I'm not going to help anyone who is jeopardizing the livelihood of others because they aren't getting DVD residuals. Enjoy your reruns people and make out your Netflix list. Because if we have idiots like this guy involved then we are in for a LONG wait for fresh material. And yeah, I just wrote that so you can picket me.
Actually, I'll be happy to write some new episodes of LOST. I can hardly do worst then some of last season. Call me...
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