E! Entertainment's striking Fashion Police writers slam Joan Rivers: 'Upsetting to find out we mean so little to her.'

The striking writers of Joan Rivers' show Fashion Police on E! Entertainment (DStv 124) are slamming Joan Rivers in a new video for not talking to them and for not supporting them in their bid for backpay and to get union representation from E! Entertainment.

The Fashion Police writers who have been on strike since 17 April are extremely upset as they're battling with several concurrent yet separate issues.

They want backpay of $1,5 million in wage and hours for unpaid regular and overtime hours worked from Joan Rivers' production company, Rugby Productions; they also want E! Entertainment Networks to recognise the Writers Guild of America as their bargaining representative (E! says a National Labour Relations Board election needs to be held first); and the writers feel incredibly let down by Joan Rivers.

"When it got to a point where we needed to talk about how we were treated and how we were compensated for doing all this work for her, she shut down," says Eliza Skinner in the new video.

"It was so upsetting to me to find out that this person who had meant so much to me, I meant so little to her."

"She won't say 'I'd like you to have that.' And that's all I need from her. And it's really sad to me that she's can't give us that," says Eliza Skinner.

"It was a whole blow up and it got really ugly," explains another one of the writers of what happened when they wanted to talk to Joan Rivers about the issues behind the show.

"We were essentially told that if we try to unionise, we'd lose our jobs," says Bryan Cook.

"If I could talk to her I would say you are important to E!, they'll listen to you. And hopefully we're important to you, I'll hope you'll listen to us," says writer Dante.