“This Sucks”: WGA West’s Internal Battle Continues As Writers Join Staff Union’s Picket Line

The Writers Guild of America West staff has been trained by some of the best when it comes to being bullish in a strike. The union’s management got a reminder of that Tuesday when a swath of WGA captains descended upon the guild’s headquarters on the busy intersection of Fairfax Ave. & 3rd St. in Los Angeles to walk the Writers Guild Staff Union’s picket line.

The writers added dozens to the staff’s numbers, bolstering the picket line in its second week. It has been ongoing since the work stoppage was called on February 17. The energy appeared welcome by WGSU members ahead of another bargaining session Tuesday night with WGA management. Deadline hears the parties are meeting at 7 p.m.

Deadline understands that this will be the first meeting since both parties met in a neutral location on Sunday evening to bargain, but WGSU members say they still felt like there was a disconnect with management by the end of it. They walked out of that meeting issuing a statement that accused WGA leadership of attempting to “push proposals that only further the inequities of a deeply broken workplace.”

In public messaging, the WGA has tried to assure its own members that this strike would have no affect on the writers union’s upcoming negotiations with the AMPTP. With an industry still reeling from a major global production contraction, all eyes are on the above-the-line unions who are set to make new deals with the major studios in the coming months after a contentious round of 2023 bargaining that led to historically long, dual writers and actors strikes.

Membership on the picket lines Tuesday seemed dissuaded by the attempts from leadership to cast aside the staff’s contributions to the bargaining cycle.

“I know both sides, and I back the staff,” said CK Kiechel, a former WGA strike captain. “These people are all people that I really trust [and] believe in. They’re everyone that got us through the last strike, and I don’t think anyone should be working for under $50,000 a year as Angelenos. We can afford to pay people.”

Missy Brown, a co-chair of the WGSU bargaining committee, told Deadline that one of the remaining sticking points is wages.

“They’re just still refusing to get on the same page about that,” she said.

The WGSU has said that 64% of its members currently make less than $84,850 a year, which is low-income threshold for Los Angeles, according to the city’s housing authority.

Sweet Magnolias showrunner Sheryl Anderson told Deadline from the picket line on Tuesday that, when the news broke that the staff union was striking against WGA management, “my first instinct was, I know we would not have survived our strike if it hadn’t been for the staff.”

“I am stunned and disappointed by how this has been handled — or not,” she said, adding that she’s hoping for “a swift and just resolution that recognizes the value of this incredible staff.”

The WGAW staff union is represented by the Pacific Northwest Staff Union. It encompasses residuals and dues processors, IT and data management workers, organizers, communications specialists, legal personnel, researchers, Writers Guild Theater employees, contract enforcement staff, and more.

The bargaining unit, which encompasses about 115 of the guild’s 160 employees, first received union recognition last spring. The parties have been bargaining on and off since September on the WGSU’s first contract.

“I, like a lot of these other WGA members, didn’t expect it to get this far,” Kiechel said. “I think I heard about this starting in September, and it sort of seemed that we would all come to the table in good faith, and this would be over by the time that we were getting to the AMPTP negotiations, and it’s not, and that’s because our own union’s surface bargaining and unfair labor practices.”

The guild staff has repeatedly accusing WGAW management of unfair labor practices as the group sought to negotiate its first contract, including unlawfully firing a member of the organizing committee. The WGA has denied any wrongdoing. In response to the staff’s strike, leadership has also released an updated side-by-side comparison of both parties’ proposals and counterproposals.

Several other writers on the picket line expressed similar displeasure at the accusations that the WGSU were levying against guild leadership.

“This sucks. None of us want to be out here. All of us want the union to be operating in good faith and bargaining in good faith with our sister union, the WGSU,” Phil Walker told the crowd gathered on the steps of the WGA headquarters. “You are our allies. You are our supporters, and you fill out a lot of paperwork, which we’re not good at. So I want to give a big thank you to the WGSU. You are the people that make the WGA what it is. We stand with you. We stand together. Management may stand against you, but membership stands with you.”

Kristine Huntley said she was “heartbroken” to be on the picket lines for the WGSU staff, because “our management isn’t doing the right thing and giving our amazing, hard working, dedicated, incredible staff who are in the WGSU, what they deserve.”

“Please, Ellen [Stutzman]if you’re listening, please come back to the table,” she added, aiming the megaphone up to the top floors of the looming building to speak directly to the WGA Executive Director and chief negotiator. “You. Nobody else. Come back to the table and give the WGSU a fair contract.”