According to the Hollywood Reporter, The Writer’s Guild has filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board against NBCUniversal. According to the Writer’s Guild, NBCUniversal is preventing them from picketing by beginning construction around the sidewalk around the studio.
This has “forc[ed] picketers to patrol in busy streets with significant car traffic where two picketers have already been struck by a car and by refusing to provide K-rail barriers to establish pedestrian walkways for picketers to use after Los Angeles Police Department advised the employer weeks ago in the interest of public safety to do so,” reads the complaint. The WGA claims that the studio “interfered with, coerced, and restrained employees in the exercise of their rights.”
NBCUniversal responded with a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: “We are aware of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA complaints. We strongly believe that the company has fulfilled our legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and we will cooperate with respect to any inquiries by the National Labor Relations Board on this issue. While we understand the timing of our multi-year construction project has created challenges for demonstrators, we continue to work with public agencies to increase access. We support the unions’ rights to demonstrate safely.”
The SAG-AFTRA, which recently joined the writers in striking, also lodged a complaint, saying that its members had to “picket at the unsafe crowded location, exacerbating the dire public safety situation to interfere with striking members’ right to engage in the protected, concerted activity of picketing and patrolling outside the employer’s premises during a lawful strike.”
With the strike now moving to its eleventh week, the picketing is part of the WGA’s attempts to halt productions.