It is a dark time in our nation’s entertainment industry. The two prominent labor unions representing radio, television and film in the United States have organized their second strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, claiming inequitable salaries and negligible recognition by the programs they write for.

Both the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East have expressed their discontent by refusing to finish the writing of their seasons shows, resulting in the ultimate catastrophe for America’s citizens: reruns.

After my ritual watching of ABC’s ‘Desperate Housewives’ on Sunday night, my mother informed me of the impending writers’ strike. ‘Enjoy that show because it might be the last new episode you’ll see in a while.’ My heart immediately sank.

Pathetic though it may be, I’m sure the Binghamton University campus will be disheartened to hear that shows such as ‘Family Guy,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The Colbert Report’ will no longer be submitting new episodes for the remainder of the season.

But fear not! Television’s classics such as WWE professional wrestling, ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ and ‘The Price is Right’ will continue their seasons without further encroachment.

The last writers’ strike was in 1988 and lasted 22 weeks, costing the entertainment industry over $500 million. Investigation into the situation reveals that the income of full-time television writers is somewhat comparable to the manager of the local McDonald’s. Why should the masterminds behind America’s favorite pastime earn anything less than their show’s producer and acting counterparts?

How many people can actually say they know the writer of their favorite television sitcom? This is the point these workers are trying to make to our country. Their argument begins with the fact that they do not benefit from the online sales and viewings of the program.

The Writers Guild of America has proposed that the writers should receive 2.5 percent of distributors gross for new media sales and distribution, however, many companies have refused to attend to this problem and have alternatively proposed that Internet sales follow the same procedure as DVD sales.

Michael Colton of the Boston Globe writes, ‘What’s important about this strike is not the impact it will have on America’s entertainment options, it’s the impact it will have on countless working families in the industry.’ Not all playwrights and scriptwriters are the stereotypical 30-year-old typing away on their MacBooks at a trendy NYC or Hollywood coffee joint. Many of them are parents struggling to support and provide for their families on an earnest middle-class salary.

This is not to say that the actors and hosts of late-night television do not support their show’s writers in this time of disgruntlement. It has been rumored that John Stewart and David Letterman will be paying their writers’ salary out of their own pockets through the end of the year; Jay Leno walked the picket-lined streets of NYC to distribute doughnuts to the strikers.

Enjoy the reruns. They’ll be a just, if not sad, reminder of the American entertainment industry’s prioritizing of sales and numbers over creativity and the middle-class worker.