Late-night comedy writers are dealing with “oblivion” if the Writers Guild loses its eight-week-old strike, in accordance with late-night comedy author and WGA negotiating committee member Greg Iwinski, a former author for The Late Present with Stephen Colbert and Final Week Tonight with John Oliver.

“Friends (and sometimes reporters) ask me why the writers are still so fired up, so visible and so united two months into the strike, and my answer is easy: When the alternative is oblivion, what else can you do but fight like hell?” he mentioned in a message despatched to guild members at the moment, the 57th day of the walkout. And positive, comedians are liable to hyperbole, however oblivion is what late-night writers are dealing with with out a victory on this contract.”

Iwinski, who hosts a weekly, all-volunteer, YouTube Channel comedy present concerning the strike – which is completely authorized below the WGA’s strike guidelines – wrote:

“A key fight in this strike is over the future of Appendix A in an industry dominated by streamers.” In tv, he famous, Appendix A within the guild’s contract covers nearly all the things that isn’t a film or an episodic TV present, together with late-night, cleaning soap operas, quiz and selection reveals and all different non-dramatic reveals.

“At the moment, after we work for subscription streaming companies our minimal pay is totally negotiable and our residuals are inadequate. The corporate response to our proposals to increase tv phrases to cowl these sorts of reveals on what are actually the dominant platforms for content material nowadays was unacceptable. They might prolong some phrases to cowl solely comedy-variety reveals, and solely provide a weekly minimal charge (whereas permitting writers to be employed at a day charge) all at finances ranges that exclude too many reveals.

“The AMPTP’s model of a union deal would go away too many Appendix A writers with out truthful compensation on the most important leisure platforms on this planet. A world the place the already-short 13-week cycles are changed by week-to-week or day-to-day contracts is a world the place writers don’t have sufficient job safety to get accepted for an condo within the cities the place these reveals are made. A world with out a affordable residual for the reuse of our work is one the place writers can not afford to pay our fundamental residing bills. And a world the place the AMPTP’s too-high finances breaks exclude too many sequence from protection is a world the place not one of the different phrases matter.

“However right here’s the factor: We’re going to win. Not simply because all of you unbelievable episodic writers and screenwriters are standing in lockstep with us, as one union. And never simply because nonfiction writers and animation writers and information writers are standing with us, reinforcing that writing is writing and we’re all equally on this collectively.

“We’re going to win as a result of this isn’t only a strike. It’s a second. It’s a motion. In case you are a Millennial, you understand that feeling deep inside your intestine {that a} damaged system has existed for too lengthy and harm too many, and that destiny has handed you the match to burn it down. That’s our second. (Should you’re Gen Z, sorry about low-rise denims, we’re not good.)

“We have now solidarity not simply from our fellow writers, and even from our fellow creatives, however from human beings across the nation and all over the world. That solidarity was on show in L.A. final Wednesday, the place over 5,000 members and allies turned out to our march and rally for a good contract. It might be felt in NYC the subsequent day, the place a dozen New York Metropolis councilmembers spoke at a rally in help of a decision demanding the AMPTP come again to the desk and provides writers a good deal.

“The AMPTP strolled into this summer season considering it was enterprise as ordinary. They thought we might break. They thought we might sample. They thought we had been scared. They thought they had been preventing one small piece of ‘their’ trade.

“Instead, their attempt at routine dismissal of the demands of their workers placed them squarely in the middle of America’s #hotlaborsummer. So many of us have felt the sting of a corporate overlord who neither understands or appreciates their workforce – and sometimes their industry. This maddening disrespect for craft, for career, for the dignity of work and the appreciation of a lifetime of skill – it’s not only anti-labor, it strikes at the spark of creativity that dwells within each human person. Some are surprised the writers are still united with so much solidarity. I’m more surprised that the AMPTP still thinks they can win this. They thought they were fighting one of us. They’re fighting all of us.”