Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Guess What I Couldn't Care Less About

Remember when a strike used to mean something? Workers would join together and sacrifice their wages and livelihood to improve their working conditions - things like machines that don't explode every 5 minutes, workers compensation for being injured on the job, not having to work for next to nothing - benefits that most of us take for granted today. Around the turn of the 20th century, these strikes would often result in riots and deaths.

Today, more of then than not, the strike is being used by people / groups that really have no business in striking. Auto workers, for some reason, believe they're entitled to a pension on par with someone who has spent their life defending this country or serving the public. Professional athletes feel that getting paid a minimum of 6 figures to play a game is totally unfair. I have no idea what a typical television and movie writer makes, but I'm fairly confident that their working conditions are considerably better than a meat packer's in early 20th Century Chicago.

Now, the Screen Actor's Guild is jumping on the "Let's strike" bandwagon. Surprisingly enough, they want some of that Internet money...because making millions of dollars to play make believe simply isn't getting the ends to meet.

One of the aims of a strike is to build sympathy in the public eye by making a sacrifice - going without pay until your demands are met. For a blue collar worker in 1912, not getting paid is a big deal. If George Clooney has to fore go the navigation system and custom rims on his new Escalade because of a strike, I'm really not going to feel that bad for him.

If these jackasses do strike, at least it's in the middle of the summer, and there's still the possibility that the actors will quit being little whiny babies by the time new episodes are to start in the fall. Maybe....