There are many unforseen consequences of the writer’s strike, not the least of which is that my law students are watching American Gladiators.  (Maybe they would do this anyway but I am clinging to the hope that, faced with choices, they would not.)  When is the writer’s strike going to end?   Is this strike, like the baseball strike, going to be one in which the parties manage to shrink the pie in the course of their negotiations? 

Bill Simmons from ESPN.com had a great explanation of the lousy bargaining strategy engaged in by the Writer’s Guild (WGA) last week in comparing it to the better strategy used by the Director’s Guild (DGA):

How did the DGA leaders succeed where the WGA leaders failed? First, they spent a significant amount of their union’s money researching digital revenue and came to the same conclusion that Hollywood had been arguing all along: namely, that it’s too early to figure out where Internet revenue is headed, just that something is happening. The WGA leaders foolishly went in the other direction and played the “You’re making a ton of money on the Internet. You’re holding back! We want some and we want some now!” card. As I wrote last month, NOBODY knows where the Internet medium is going, including ESPN, by the way. By insinuating otherwise, the WGA was basically coming out and saying, “You guys are liars!” And nobody likes to be called a liar, right?

Second, and more importantly, the DGA approached the entire negotiating process from a much more congenial and logical place — lots of informal meetings, no leaks to the press, no threats, no bullying and a healthy respect for the power and resolve of the other side — as opposed to the WGA leaders, who came off more petulantly and more entitled than your average rich birthday girl on “My Super Sweet 16.” Negotiations are about leverage, respect, human nature and common sense, right? How did the WGA not know this? Now, the success of the DGA has convinced them to adopt a friendlier, more conciliatory mind-set for the next round of negotiations, as evidenced by both sides agreeing to a news blackout (translation: no information from the talks getting leaked) and the WGA dropping its demands for jurisdiction over reality shows and animation.

Anyway, the strike is going to end fairly soon, and when it does, everyone is going to ask the same thing: “Why the hell didn’t we get this done three months ago?” Better late than never, I guess.

I agree on all fronts with Mr. Simmons and, more importantly, want the writers back in action.  First, even Jon Stewart needs his writers.  Second, when my students are quoting negotiation strategy from American Gladiators (“well, they arm-wrestled last night so I wanted to kick some butt today!) even I start to miss some good trashy drama shows.