The WGA Awards have become somewhat of a bright spot for film and TV scribes in the past several years amid turbulent moments in Hollywood — one carefree night to celebrate their accomplishments rather than lament the plight of many in their ranks. That is, until this year, as the award show arrives with its own set of baggage.
Now that the West Coast ceremony has been canceled amid the ongoing WGA West staff strike, rather than readying for Sunday’s awards (which still will take place on the East Coast), dozens of Los Angeles-based writers instead spent their Friday afternoon walking a picket line outside their own union’s headquarters.
“Whatever,” Michelle Furtney-Goodman, a longtime WGAW member with credits including One Tree Hill and Gotham Knights, shrugged when asked how she felt about the awards ceremony cancellation. “It’s just a casualty of what’s happening, and I feel like they’re using that as a way to turn the Writers Guild members against the staff, and I feel like it’s super transparent.”
The Writers Guild Staff Union, which has been negotiating its first contract with the WGA West since September, is still on strike after more than two weeks. Multiple bargaining committee members confirmed to Deadline that the staff has not had contact with WGA West management since a call on February 24, where they say leadership offered an “ultimatum”: accept the offer on the table or the WGA Awards West Coast ceremony would not happen.
Clearly, they didn’t take the offer. WGSU bargaining committee member David Venhuizen says he “kind of expected” the radio silence from guild leadership after offering a deal he says he feels “won’t work” for staff, but he’s hopeful that guild management will “recognize that it’s probably in their best interest that we get this done as soon as possible, and everybody’s best interest.”
The WGSU has framed the move to cancel the ceremony as a bully tactic, but in a previous statement, the guild said that it would not ask its own members to cross another union’s picket line — since the staff very likely would have a presence to protest the event if still on strike.
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“I think it’s smart, because members wouldn’t want to go to it, but it really is a bummer,” writer-producer Krystal Ziv told Deadline as she walked the picket line. “I think everybody wanted it to be worked out by now and to be moving forward.”
Instead, three years after voting to support their own work stoppage against the major studios, the writers that marched alongside staff on the busy corner of Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street expressed disappointment and bewilderment that this issue had not yet been resolved.
The WGA East and West are set to enter joint negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new multi-year TV/Theatrical contract on March 16. While WGAW leadership has tried to assure members that the staff strike would not impact these talks, members so far have seemed quite displeased they’ve intersected at all. There’s no getting around the fact that the optics aren’t great.
“They’re trying to paint it as if the writers [guild] staff intentionally timed it this way, which I do not at all feel is the case from everybody I’ve spoken with. They’re not trying to hurt us as a membership,” Furtney-Goodman said. “They’re just trying to be treated fairly. The Writers Guild East has been unionized for 20 years. This is [WGAW staff’s] third attempt to get a union contract. What does it say about us if we’re using union-busting techniques? Frankly, it’s just gross.”
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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 comprises about 115 of the guild’s 160 staff members, repeatedly has accused management of unfair labor practices, including unlawfully firing a member of the negotiating committee. The WGA has denied any wrongdoing. In response to the staff’s strike, leadership also has released an updated side-by-side comparison of both parties’ proposals and counter-proposals.
Another sign that the staff might be winning the messaging war? They’ve snapped up Atsuko Okatsuka, who was slated to host the WGA Awards West Coast host ceremony, to headline a comedy show on Sunday night to benefit the staff strike fund.
Venhuizen, a comedian himself who helped organize the show at Bar Bandini in Los Angeles, smirked when asked how he felt about securing the support of Okatsuka.
“It’s a big get to have her on any show. To get her on this show, of course, is ironic,” he said. “We’d rather that there was an award show and we had a contract, but we’re happy that she’s supportive, for sure.”
While the West Coast affair has been canceled, the show will go on. After all, the WGA East and West are separate entities that only operate together in certain circumstances, like awards and some negotiations. The WGAE staff, as Furtney-Goodman pointed out, has been organized with United Steelworkers for many years and is not on strike.
Deadline understands that the East Coast ceremony organizers have offered to accommodate any nominees or invitees who planned to attend the L.A. ceremony, though with space so tight at NYC’s Edison Ballroom, it’s unclear how many took them up on that.
Writers who spoke with Deadline on Friday waved off most talk of the ceremony, bristling at any insinuation that the blame for the strike fallout should lay at the feet of the staff.
“I want to see Ellen [Stutzman] come back to the table and negotiate, not in this condescending [way], ‘Oh, we can only be here till 6,’” Furtney-Goodman said. “Treat it seriously and treat our staff members with respect, because that’s what they deserve. They give so much to all of us.”