WGA West Rejects Counterproposal From Staff Union on ‘Best, Last and Final Offer’

The Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild Staff Union remain at an impasse as the strike that has kept the doors of the WGA’s Fairfax headquarters closed reaches its 71st day.

In a memo sent to members Wednesday and obtained by TheWrap, the WGSU said that the WGAW rejected a counterproposal to what the guild called its “best, last and final offer” submitted on April 8.

The staff union said it asked for the WGAW to adopt the layoff and no-strike provisions that the Writers Guild of America East has with its unionized staffers, as well as “making longevity increases apply to total years of service, not just service in a particular position, which management had previously indicated a willingness to agree to.”

The WGSU says that its bargaining committee will meet on Wednesday night to discuss its next move.

“Please note: this does not meet the legal standard of a last, best, and final offer. Legally meeting ‘last best and final’ means both parties reach a genuine, good-faith impasse after meaningful bargaining, and clearly understand that further negotiations would be futile,” the memo added.

The WGSU’s memo comes a day after the Writers Guild leadership sent an email to members updating them on the staffers’ strike. In it, the WGAW accused WGSU members of intimidating members of the guild’s bargaining committee during its three weeks of contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

“PNWSU/WGSU strikers who attempted to interfere with MBA negotiations—which benefited Guild staff directly as participants in the PWGA health plan—acted in an aggressive manner completely out of line with how writers have always operated during WGA strikes,” the guild memo read.

The WGAW accused an officer of the WGSU’s parent union, the Pacific Northwest Staffers Union, of shoving a member of WGA’s outside counsel to prevent him from entering the SAG-AFTRA headquarters where MBA negotiations were being held. The guild also claims that WGSU members have held protests outside of guild executive director Ellen Stutzman’s home.

“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,” the memo read.

As for the WGSU’s demands, the guild said in the memo that it will not agree to a no-strike clause that would allow staffers to strike if they feel an unfair labor practice has been committed — something the WGSU has accused the guild of committing during contract negotiations — to ensure that “important Guild campaigns and events will not be disrupted during the term of the agreement.”

The guild has also rejected the staffers’ demand that promotions and layoffs be determined exclusively by seniority.

“The Guild’s goal should be to have the best employee in any given position, regardless of the duration of their employment. While the type of seniority system proposed by the staff union might work elsewhere, it doesn’t at the Guild where there are 18 departments and distinctive job responsibilities requiring a varying range of skills, abilities, and experience,” the memo read.

The WGSU has asked the WGAW to enter mediation with California’s State Mediation and Conciliation Service, which recently oversaw a successful agreement between the L.A. Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles.

But on a webpage created to address the strike, WGAW says that mediation “would only give false hope that further movement is possible, or that there is some sort of middle ground, which is not the case, and could even prolong the strike.”

TheWrap has reached out to WGAW for further comment.

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