Autism and the Writer's Strike

Autism's been much in the media lately, with creative types sharing their stories, raising funds, and touting remedies. So maybe it's not so surprising to see a connection made between the issues film and television writers are fighting for and the struggles of families of children with autism.

Still, I thought a post on the Adventures in Autism blog yesterday put an interesting twist on a labor situation I've been viewing only from an entertainment angle. Under the headline "Why You Should Support the Writer's Strike," blogger Ginger Taylor writes, "Bottom line .... because many of those writers are parents of autistic children, and the residuals that they are fighting for will go to support their autistic children for years and years to come."

She goes on to share a story about how her husband, a WGA member, was cheated out of about $38,000 of residuals by a producer who had no intention of honoring a contract, even with the guild fighting on the writer's behalf. She tries not to think about how much intervention that $38,000 would have bought for their son, who has autism; in fact, the family has had to cut back on interventions for financial reasons.

And now, a strike certainly doesn't help with that. Nor does it help with the families of children with special needs who are not writers but have been put out of work by the strike anyway. The unfortunate thing about strikes is that they're not effective unless they're hurting somebody, and the people who need to be hurt for a change to be made are usually far from the first ones to feel the effects.