According to Deadline, the Writers Guild of America West is throwing down the gauntlet in a new union. After 71 days on strike, WGSU members were notified that they had received their final offer on a first contract from management. The statement was sent in an email by the guild.
“It has been apparent for some time that the Guild and PNWSU/WGSU have been at impasse in bargaining a first staff union contract. Today the Guild made clear to the staff union that the current Guild proposal—sent on April 8—is its final offer,” WGA West leaders wrote in the memo via Deadline.
The proposal on the table “comes after extensive efforts to reach agreement over 21 bargaining sessions, including 2 full sessions during the staff strike, as well as additional conversations with members of their negotiating committee,” the memo continued via Deadline.
As per Deadline, the WGA West leadership will be meeting with the WGSU on Tuesday night to discuss the offer and “address again why the staff union’s remaining proposals are unworkable.”
According to Deadline, WGAW management went on to detail few of those untenable asks, including a no-strike clause that would allow a work stoppage during the contract if it is shown that an unfair labor practice was committed. The WGAW also aired a few grievances about the staff’s alleged behavior during the writers’ MBA negotiations, describing several incidents in which the guild states that staff “acted in an aggressive manner completely out of line with how writers have always operated during WGA strikes”.
“Staff union strikers have targeted executive director Ellen Stutzman, showing up at her home in groups and over multiple days in a row, returning up to five times per day,” the memo says via Deadline. “Most of these actions are unprotected under federal labor law; some are illegal, and the attempted intimidation of the Guild’s executive director at her home is absolutely unacceptable.”