A Good Word on the Strike

My friend Gregg Hurwitz, author of THE CRIME WRITER, sums up my feelings on the strike better than I can.  He’s also better looking than me:

Coming to Hollywood as an author, I was amazed at the benefits and
infrastructure provided to me as a screenwriter. Health care. Pension.
Residuals. Minimums. There’s not a day I’ve worked in L.A. that I’m not
grateful for these benefits—benefits that provide for my family and
that allow me to continue to do my job. These benefits were won by the
sweat and courage of men and women who had much more to lose and who
took greater risks than those before us now. These benefits were won by
the sacrifices others made for future generations, for me.

This
membership, this year, cannot dissipate those gains. We cannot cave in
to an unfair deal that writers decades from now will be saddled with.
This is a watershed contract. Future writers will look back to this
year, to this contract, to us, every day as they live with what our
resolve and respect for writing yielded. They can look back on us with
the same gratitude we look back on those who came before us. Or they
can look back with disappointment.

We’d be well served to remember that this contract isn’t just for us.