Why the WGA Struck

I've been reading up a lot about the WGA strike and what it means to me. As many of you know, I've moved to LA to try and "make it" as a writer in the entertainment industry. Gaining membership to the exclusive club that is the Writers Guild of America is essential in the future of my career. So, while I may not be a guild member the strike still greatly affects me. Essentially the strike stops dead in its tracks any scripts or screenplays that I've written on spec and have sent in for consideration. In fact, the build up to the impending strike started affecting this aspect of my writing nearly a month ago. Producers basically stopped taking or reading any new screenplays since the strike would render any negotiation pointless.

On a different note, the strike means that hundreds of jobs held by guild writers will be empty while the strike is on. Nevertheless, It would be career suicide to try and take advantage of this. Were I to break the picket line and write as a "scab" I would eliminate my chance of ever getting into the Guild as I would be "Blacklisted" and denied entry. To be completely honest, I don't think that I could live with myself were I to write as a scab. Essentially I would be thumbing my nose at my colleagues. While I am not yet a WGA member, I have no doubt in my mind that I will soon be one. So any benefits I were to recieve from being a WGA member would be complete BS if I were to get away with scab writing. I wouldn't deserve any of the benefits gained by those writers who put their jobs and livelihoods on the line for what was right.

So through my research into the strike and the reasons behind it, I found this great video: