The writers of Hollywood are serious, and they say that they are going on strike. This means that at some point in the future, you may or may not see some repeats on TV. Of all the unions, though, the Writers Guild of America is the one that makes me chuckle the most when it threatens a strike. My dad taught me at a young age that no one is irreplaceable. Some professionals are more difficult to replace than others but writers are pretty low down on that list. Good writing is a bit of a commodity. A lot of people can do it well, and if Hollywood had the backbone to do it, they could replace their unionized writers pretty easily. Of course, nobody is really interested in turning over the apple cart in this situation, so Hollywood will tolerate any strike and the writers will eventually receive some compromise. I think a fresh class of writers in southern California could breath some life into a rather moribund entertainment industry, though. Too bad nobody wants to take that risk.
Postscript
This is not to say that a writer's strike with the backing of the Teamsters does not pose problems to Hollywood. It is just to say, using my dad's analogy, removing the union writers from Hollywood would be like taking your hand out of a bucket of water-the space your hand occupied is easily and quickly filled.
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