Just weeks before the start of a high-stakes bargaining cycle with the major Hollywood studios, the Writers Guild of America’s own staff is threatening to go on strike.
The Writers Guild Staff Union said late Thursday that 82% of its membership has voted to authorize the work stoppage, accusing guild management of bad faith bargaining. The union staff organized last spring and have been negotiating their first contract with management intermittently since September.
The alleged unfair labor practices include “surface bargaining, bad faith bargaining, unilateral changes to status quo, retaliation for protected activity, and unlawful surveillance.” The latest development comes after the WGSU filed a ULP charge against the WGA West with the National Labor Relations Board, suggesting that a member of the organizing committee was unlawfully fired.
The staff union did not give a deadline but said in a public Instagram post that “if management won’t bargain in good faith with us at the table, we will see them on the picket line.”
The timing is less than ideal, considering that the Writers Guild is set to begin negotiating a new TV/Theatrical contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in March. The current contract expires May 1.
The WGAW staff union is represented by the Pacific Northwest Staff Union. It encompasses residuals & dues processors, IT & data management workers, organizers, communications specialists, legal personnel, researchers, Writers Guild Theater employees, contract enforcement staff, and more.
This marks the first bargaining cycles since the historically long writers and actors strikes in 2023. The WGA West staffers played a critical role in that organizing effort, which saw thousands of writers on picket lines across Los Angeles and New York for 148 days.
