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As a writer (or some perversion thereof), I’m still siding with the writers on this one. That being said, I just wish they’d get back to work already. If they stay on the picket lines, eventually I’m going to have to go out and get a life, and I know for a fact that shit is expensive. Heroes had its finale on Monday, The Office has been MIA. And new seasons of Lost and 24 may never see the light of day. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Jenna Fischer, Pam from The Office posted a blog on her MySpace page (we’re buddies, you know…I’m a stalker) that the writers and the studios were going to attempt overcome their differences and sit down at the negotiating table one more time. As it turns out, those talks have gone sour.

According to this article from the New York Times:

Those discussions continued through Friday with no discernible breakthrough in a strike that has passed the month-old point. By late afternoon, the sides had not closed a wide gap between competing proposals covering compensation for advertiser-supported programming shown free on the Internet. They also appeared to be at a standoff over guild demands for jursidiction over writers for reality television shows, which currently are largely outside of the guilds’ reach. Meanwhile, other key issues — including compensation for movies and shows sold via the Internet — had yet to be confronted.

In a letter to members, the presidents of the two writers guilds on Friday morning lashed out at the producers for holding back proposals and challenged them to negotiate with them “day and night, through the Christmas and New Years holidays” to end the strike. Producers representatives shot back with a broadside against the writers’ statement and tactics, accusing them of spending more time during the negotiating sessions talking among themselves than to their bargaining counterparts. The barbed exchanges did little to tamp down expectations of an imminent breakdown in the talks.

It’s over a month now, and things seem to be getting pretty nasty (the major point of contention being that writers are looking for greater residuals from DVD sales and reruns shown on the Internet, the latter of which they don’t get a penny from).

The AMPTP, which represents the networks and studios, however, was quick to shoot back [source]:

However, the AMPTP countered in its own statement that it did present a proposal, which it calls the “New Economic Partnership,” which would boost the average working writer’s salary to more than $230,000 a year.

The AMPTP also disputed the WGA’s claim that it has been at the bargaining table every day, ready to negotiate. “The WGA’s organizers sought a four-day break, and when they returned sessions that were supposed to begin at 10:00 am often did not start until after lunchtime. When they are at the negotiating site, WGA organizers typically spend as much time speaking among themselves as they do at the negotiating table.”

Further, said the AMPTP, writers refused “repeated requests” by producers to begin contract talks in the spring of 2007. “Had negotiations begun when the producers wanted them to start, perhaps the industry would not now be in the midst of this strike.”

All this means is I’m never going to find out how Jack and Kate got off the island and why they’re so sore at each other in the future.