WGA Stages First Major N.Y. Demonstration In 2008
More Than 300 Writers Picket Viacom’s Times Square Headquarters
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 1/9/2008 9:28:00 AM
The Writers Guild of America Wednesday held its first “large-scale” picket in New York City in 2008, with more than 300 strikers outside Viacom’s headquarters in Times Square on an unusually warm winter day.
The picket line included members of the writing staffs of the New York-based late-night shows – Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report – which have gone back on the air without their writers.
In a show of solidarity with the scribes still on strike, the writers of The Late Show With David Letterman – a show that’s reached a deal with the WGA -- still took part in the picket, represented on the picket line today by strike captain Bill Scheft, who spent the entire day picketing with fellow WGA East writers.
The Late Show With David Letterman writers also provided lunch to the picketers, as did The Colbert Report, which sent pizzas to the line.
Among the hundreds of WGA East and West, Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA members also on the picket line were: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Richard Belzer, Seth Meyers, John Slattery, Terry George, Tony Gilroy, Tom Fontana, Nick Pileggi, Ron Nyswaner, Alan Zweibel, Andrew Bergman, Adam Brooks and Jerry Coopersmith.
In addition, some United Airlines pilots, dressed in their uniforms, joined the striking writers on the picket line.
The WGA has been on strike since Nov. 5.
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