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Why should writers get more money??? The national average salary in the US is approx $38,000 and the average writer gets paid approx $60,000 a year (median white male writer earnings are approx $120,000 pa). Why should anyone feel sorry for them? The only people who suffer are the non-unionized ancillary and support staff who get let go while productions shut down. The irony with the strike is that whilst the little guy loses his job, writers continue to earn a decent take-home $ through DVD residuals from all the people renting / buying movies rather than watch TV reruns!!!!! The strikers and their supporters should be ashamed of themselves...... Wikipedia strike background - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007-2008_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike Writers Guild Salary Report - http://www.wga.org/uploadedFiles/who_we_are/HWR07_exec.pdf National Average Wage Index - http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/AWI.html Sports stars often get paid more than the team coach. They already receive money from DVDs - the writer's guild wants to double this amount. Would you ask your manager to double your xmas bonus? With regards to the internet they have been offered the same amount as they currently receive for DVD's. this isn't enough for them...... For those who are saying that Writer's make a near god like contribution to society - bear in mind the top level salary for a firefighter in Washington DC is approx $66k pa (http://www.metwashairports.com/emergency_services/fire_rescue/salary_requirements). Who's more important - someone who can make you laugh for 1/2 an hour or someone who would lay their life on the line for you? Where is eveyone getting their information from? Writers (in the media perhaps, newspapers, magazines, tv shows etc.)? Surely they'd paint an honest picture? Why is an actor in full time employment when a writer isn't? Actor's are employed in the same way writers are - if anything writers have more stability. A writer can kill off a character in a story but this can't happen the other way around without criminal charges.....

Without the writers there is nothing....actors get all that money doing what the writers tell them!!! do you get more money than your manager? I know sports stars get more money than the manager of the team....you are missing the point....they don't want more than or as much as the actors....they just want more than what they are on now....and to be fair the actors are all agreeing!

It's their work which is being used in DVDS and on the internet and consequently, they should be entitled to a share of the profits. It doesn't matter what their current wage is. I support the writers

Simply put, they are the foundation on which the substance of your Hollywood entertainment stands. What is any show (even "reality tv") without a script?

Who feels sorry for them?? Certianly not me, but certianly everyone should be paid for the work they do. What if you were a writer? Wouldn't you expect to be paid your share where ever money is being made on your work??

Sure, they do get paid well, but not what they deserve. They deserve a more equal payment PLUS they deserve money for everything they've done.

But a writer is not necessarily in full time employment , in the same way as an actor. From what I understand they are being cheated out of royalties they are due. EDIT. Both actors and writers employment is by no means secure, so when they do produce work they want paying for it properly. YOU obviously misunderstood what I meant. Perhaps you just wanted to rant about the situation. In which case, you should have put it on a blog.

I understand your figures; however, the screen writers don't often get money from DVD residuals - that is exactly why the strike is going on. Most screen writers sell a few episodes to a TV show, but when that ends they can be out of work for months to years. Screen writers don't have a constant source of income. Those tens of thousands of dollars you listed may seem like a good amount of money, but it really isn't when you figure that that money has to last until the next (unknown) job comes around. The screen writers wish to get money from DVD residuals, because then they would have a steady source of income that could sustain them.

As a real writer, not a script-jockey, I don't feel they should be asking for a raise in salary. Did you know they are putting thousands of other people, people who don't make much money at all, out of work right now because their selfish strike? People that need that money, however meager they get, rather than writers wanting to get a new sportscar or something equally useless. And besides, if real writers aren't allowed a union, fake ones shouldn't have one either.

I'm going to feel like an idiot if I find out I've taken more AMPTP online shill-bait, but assuming you're serious --- First of all, it is indeed awful that so many people are suffering in the wake of this strike. But any sensible person knows that it's the AMPTP that's to blame for the pain being inflicted on so many wonderful below the line people. They have refused to negotiate, and it is my personal opinion that they are engaging in good old fashioned strongarm collusion, publicly whipping the WGA for standing up for themselves rather than sweethearting it up with them. Why is the AMPTP hiring PR guys known for damage control and political spin-doctoring if they're so very very in the right? Secondly, if a musician or author creates a work, they earn money based on the sales of their music or books. Four additional cents based on a formula that was baloney to begin with (back when home video was "unproven" just like the internet is, according to the folks who are telling their own stockholders it'll earn them billions in 2008 today) is not much of an ask. You, in your addendums, compare this to asking your boss to double your Christmas bonus. If writers fail to obtain internet coverage, it'll be more like voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of their income (never mind the Christmas bonus) or more as technology drives more and more viewers to purchase their entertainment by download. The national average wage index entries mean nothing to me in a city where the average home price has gone north of $600,000. In my old hometown, it's less than a third of that. Sadly, you've got to live in NY or LA to work as a writer in most cases. Also, If you want to hold up the median wage index in an attempt to tell me that the creators of multi-million dollar films and television shows should in no case outearn a short order cook from Topeka or insurance salesman in Tampa, your point doesn't land with me. Please feel free to believe the nonsense statistics offered on the cute little banners at www.amptp.org. Those figures are based on the earnings of working writers in the WGA, whose earnings are often amortized over many years of working on projects that either fail to sell or die on the vine. While the WGA would certainly rather not be on strike, it's unfair to expect them to absorb the massive blows the AMPTP wishes to deal them in the name of keeping guys like Chernin and Moonves on the payroll in the tens of millions each year. I'm not saying they're bad guys (I actually kind of like Moonves most of the time), I'm just saying that you could pay a lot more people a decent wage if one exec wasn't costing your company 30 to 40 million a year. Tom Freston left Viacom in 2006 with a 71 million dollar SEVERANCE PACKAGE, making him the second highest paid male exec in America and earning him almost 30 million more than the head of Merrill Lynch. As I can see you like links and would like to be able to verify information like this, please visit these and enjoy, noting that at least three of the highest paid execs in America come from media (four if you count internet). http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0709/gallery.women_men_highest_pay.fortune/2.html http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0709/gallery.women_men_highest_pay.fortune/15.html http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0709/gallery.women_men_highest_pay.fortune/16.html In closing, if you enjoy an eight hour day or overtime pay, thank unions and the men and women who stood up to corporate greed years ago for getting that for you. Unions are necessary now more than ever, and I genuinely believe the WGA is doing the right thing by holding out. Thanks. (And Dan A, what's a "real writer," anyway? I presume you write books or some other sort of prose? If so, it's awfully elitist of you to go after "script jockeys," given the fact that Benchley, Parker, Fitzgerald and so many more spent their time in the dungeons and indeed were among the first to talk about unionizing.)

What the writer earns now is not that relevant when it is compared to the actors and director...It is pittance in comparison. As composers or singers do they have every right to earn money for each showing of their work. The actors have no work and the directors have nothing to direct without their work. I don't feel sorry for them as indeed they still make more than me but when i'm a writer i would hope i'm paid fairly what i'm due as i'm sure would you. The unfairness, in England anyway is the firefighters, train drivers and postal workers who take every opportunity to strike greedily over pay, pensions or what have you. All 3 professions earn more than paramedics and nurses over here but those who surely deserve more pay cannot strike because of ancient laws and a moral duty of care.