Jay Leno's staff fired!
Posted by Media Outrage on December 1st, 2007
A couple of days after the Writers Guild of America strike began November 5, Jay Leno told some 80 of his idled staffers that they need not worry about their finances.
Leno was so adamant about paychecks being safe, many didn’t bother looking for new jobs even though NBC was forecasting layoffs.
So it came as quite a shock Friday when the entire staff was told that they were not only out of a job but also that they weren’t guaranteed of being rehired once “The Tonight Show” returns.
“Some people were crying. Some people were screaming,” said one employee speaking on condition of anonymity.
NBC declined comment on the firings beyond a brief statement that it had “regretfully informed the people who work on ‘The Tonight Show With Jay Leno’ and ‘Late Night With Conan O’Brien’ that their services are not needed at this time due to our inability to continue production of the shows.”
According to several staffers, tensions at “Tonight Show” have been mounting for weeks, and matters weren’t helped by news that other late-night hosts have been preserving the jobs of their nonwriting staffs or paying those who had been laid off. O’Brien confirmed Thursday, for example, that he would pay the salaries of at least 50 nonwriting “Late Night” staffers out of his own pocket on a week-to-week basis.
Some “Tonight Show” insiders are angry at Leno, because of an upbeat conference call he held shortly after the WGA strike began.
“He was on speaker phone,” a staffer said. “There were 80 of us. He told us not to panic. He said to trust him. He said: ‘I can’t get into details, but nobody will miss a car payment or lose their house. We’re family. Trust me. I’m going to take care of this.’ But that was the time we should have been looking for new jobs.”
Dag Jay Leno..well it was probably out of his control and his pockets were probably starting to dwindle and we can’t have that now can we? If we are both on a boat and you falling off but holding onto me should i let you just pull me off and kill us both??? H to the NO! But messed up for the people who lost their jobs.
