Posted on 09/11/2023 11:53:36 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Show Back Amid Strikes: ‘Gross,’ ‘Scab,’ ‘Incredibly Disappointing’
Drew Barrymore is being criticized by fellow actors and writers on social media for her decision to bring back her eponymous daytime talk show amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. “The Drew Barrymore Show” is set to return Sept. 18.
While Barrymore is not violating SAG-AFTRA rules as the host of the show (guild contracts for talk shows, game shows, variety shows and soap operas was renewed and ratified in 2022), her show does employ WGA writers. This means new episodes of “The Drew Barrymore Show” will have to utilize either violating WGA members, non-WGA writers or no one. A spokesperson for CBS Media Ventures told Variety the show will “not be performing any writing work covered by the WGA strike.”
“Drew Barrymore has always been someone who recognized her privilege and aimed to evolve, so I hope she will reconsider this hasty decision intended to pay her crew because it weakens both unions to openly endorse scabbing,” TV writer Gennefer Gross posted.
TV personality Felicia Day added, “Sooo who is writing her opening monologue and literally everything else on this show when it starts up again next week? Scab writers?! Ughhhh gross Drew Barrymore. Gross.”
“This is incredibly disappointing,” comic and writer Adam Conover wrote. “Drew Barrymore’s show employs WGA writers who are currently on strike. She is choosing to go back on the air without them, and forcing her guests to cross a picket line. Drew: This harms your writers and all union workers. Please reconsider.”
“The West Wing” star Josh Malina posted a photo of Barrymore to Twitter/X with the word “SCAB” attached, while his former co-star Bradley Whitford wrote that “we’ll never forget” Barrymore’s decision to go back on the air amid the strikes.
Barrymore herself explained her decision to return in a Sept 10. social media post, writing, “I own this choice. We are in compliance with not discussing or promoting film and television that is struck of any kind. We launched live in a global pandemic. Our show was built for sensitive times and has only functioned through what the real world is going through in real time.”
After Barrymore posted about the return of her talk show, the Writers Guild of America, East shared a statement that read: “The Drew Barrymore TV show is a WGA covered, struck show that is planning to return without its writers. The Guild has, and will continue to picket struck shows that are in production during the strike. Any writing on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ is a violation of WGA strike rules.”
“Never a civil discussion on the pros and cons of unions - only vile threats and insults.”
I see little merit to unions. Making economic war against your employer makes no more sense than making economic war against your customer or supplier.
I had to deal with the Teamsters when I use to attend sales conventions. It was a collection of awful lazy rude jerks who did everything in their power to NOT work. And when I started to unload my displays they ran over and scolded me. Even had to hire a union electrician to plug in the power block.
Hollywood is a fake reality that the silly fools take seriously.
Unions made sense when there were tycoons like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford etc who squashed workers like bugs and brought in more workers to slave in horrible conditions.
However that day is long over as companies just ship the workers jobs overseas and shutters the factories
The legitimacy of collective bargaining was destroyed when it became illegal to fire striking workers.
Before those laws were passed, union workers participating in a strike were exactly like groups of customers forming to boycott a company’s product.
Essentially, collective bargaining was a way to gain strength in numbers.
In the case of a product boycott, the giant company selling the product would obviously be far more responsive to the demands of ten thousand customers than to any one customer. Still, the boycott could fail if its demands were unreasonable - because at a reasonable price/quality, there is no shortage of new customers to replace the boycotting ones.
Similarly, striking union workers could legitimately gain strength in numbers through collectively bargaining, but only to the point where their demands became unreasonable - at which point they would all be fired and replaced with more reasonable workers.
All of that legitimacy was destroyed when it became illegal to fire striking workers - which made it possible for union workers to be unreasonable without facing the co sequences.
It would be like customers boycotting a company and making it illegal for that company to sell to anyone!
Absurd.
Lock 'em up.
something like that....i have enjoyed some of her work in the past...it is so sad to see a daughter of a legendary family sink into the abyss.
I pray for her redemption.
Good arguments.
I’d like to add that the laws of demand still apply today. Unions can drive up wages, but with consequences: automation, subcontracting, bankruptcy, offshoring. Unions are good for the few union members who keep their jobs, but are no bargain for those who are locked outside the factory fence looking in.
Why have Americans enjoyed higher wages than the rest of the world? We have (had?) a positive investment environment. This means that there are a lot of employers who compete with one another to hire workers, thereby driving up wages.
I don’t know if we have ever had completely free trade. NAFTA was Not A Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was a collection of tariffs and quotas, some 1100 pages long. President Trump said, correctly I think, that it was poorly negotiated. Bad trade agreements are no help.
These Hollywood strikers should be careful. The longer they refuse to put out their tripe, the more their audience will realize that they don’t need them at all.
They’re on strike?
She can't think of questions to ask her guests?
I don’t know if we have ever had completely free trade.
Right, whichever side can afford government protection - it’s no longer free trade.
My grandfather used to say City Hall was a “one-stop-shop” for paying bribes - built as a convenience, so merchants wouldn’t have to drive all over kingdom come to pay officials off.
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