In what is sure to be an embarrassing turn of events, employees of the East Coast branch of the WGA whoa are represented by the Newspaper Guild are planning to go on strike. They claim that the WGA East has attempted to modify a contract that was ratified by their members last Oct.

“It’s like a car salesman demanding that you sign a contract after he’s changed all the numbers you had agreed upon,” Newspaper Guild President Bill O’Meara told the New York Post.

A WGA spokesperson would only comment that teh dispute has been submitted to the National Labor Relations Board for a resolution.

I’m not real sure there could be a worse time for this. It’s not going to be long before the AMPTP manages to turn the general public’s opinion on the Writer’s strike - for a lot of middle class Americans its kind of hard to grasp what they’re striking for anyway. They complain about not getting .04 cents on a DVD - but to a factory worker who spends everyday assembling products that he/she doesn’t make an extra penny from…well, they have a hard time being sympathetic. I’m not saying the Writer’s are wrong - I’m just saying not everyone is interested in being informed enough about it to really care - they’re going to hear the new reports about what the strike is costing other workers in LA, and they’re going to hear it from the AMPTP’s point of view - and people will turn on the writers.

Now adding that the WGA itself is being accused of not negotiating a fair deal, and trying to change it in the last minute - well…that’s not going to go over real well either.

There’s going to be bad press over this. Obviously we don’t know the entire story, and I hope we get the facts on it very soon, but I can’t see any way where this doesn’t negatively impact the WGA and their position in this strike.