Hey, Don't be scabin'

I'm no legal eagle, but does this count as 'scab-worthy'? I hope not, cause I really respect these two fine gentlemen:

Comedy Central’s pair of popular news satirists, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, will return to their television shows on Jan. 7, two months after production was suspended because of a writers’ strike.

Mr. Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” and Mr. Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report,” will have to improvise their monologues and interviews without the help of their writing staffs.

In a statement, Comedy Central said, “We continue to hold out hope for a swift resolution to the current stalemate that will enable the shows to be complete again.”

...

Both hosts are Writers Guild of America members. The guild, in a statement, accused Comedy Central of forcing the two hosts back to work and reiterated that the studios should resume negotiations to reach a settlement in the strike.

In a statement, the two hosts said they would prefer to return to work with their writers. “If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence,” they stated.

Without writers, “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” which are shown weeknights at 11 p.m. and at 11:30 p.m. and serve as important shows for Comedy Central, are likely to lean on unscripted interview segments. Booking guests may not be easy because some entertainers and presidential candidates have refused to cross picket lines. [nyt]