On Tuesday, February 17, 2026, the Writers Guild Staff Union (WGSU), went on strike against their employer, the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW), itself a labor union representing screenwriters in their western jurisdiction of the United States.[1]
The WGSU alleges unfair labor practices, including retaliatory termination, bad faith surface bargaining, and surveillance of union activity. While the staff of the WGSU are not writers, many writers who they represent have attended their picket line in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. The Writers Guild Staff Union is a local chapter of the Pacific Northwest Staff Union (PNWSU), which is an industrial union focusing on organizing the staff who work at labor unions.[2][3]
This unprecedented labor action has led to substantial media coverage, and places the WGAW in the position of having to bargain the first WGSU collective bargaining agreement while quickly approaching renegotiations for the 2026 Minimum Basic Agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which are scheduled to begin on March 16. The strike has led to condemnation of the WGAW management by the Guild's membership, and the cancellation of the 2026 Writers Guild of America Awards.[1][3]
The staff of the Writers Guild of America West have been nonunion and unprotected by a collective bargaining agreement since the decertification of the previous staff union, the Guild Staff Union (GSU) in 2013. The GSU formed in the midst of the Great Recession and in the wake of both the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, in which Guild employees worked on picket line support, and the first layoffs in the Guild's history. The GSU was an independent union, and therefore did not have the organizational backing of an at-large organization. The GSU faced considerable unionbusting action by the Writers Guild of America West management team, which eventually led to their decertification.[citation needed]
WGSU organizing effort
For nearly five months in 2023, staff members of the WGAW worked once again to support screenwriters during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. They provided logistics, supplies, and organizational structure to ensure that striking writers were well-supplied on the picket lines in and around the city of Los Angeles, and to ensure that they continued to receive their residuals checks. This experience inspired many of the staff, most of whom were not present during the GSU years, to meet together in secret to organize another staff union.[6][7]
This Organizing Committee (OC) chose to organize under the Pacific Northwest Staff Union (PNWSU). PNWSU is an industrial union that represents workers in the labor industry. This position as the organizers of workers who work to organize other workers places them in a unique position in the American labor movement, as they exclusively bargain against the leaderships of labor organizations. They have organized and negotiated collective bargaining agreements for the staffmembers of many labor orgs, including various Service Employees International Union (SEIU) locals, various United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals, the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, (KIWA), and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.[8]
Beginning on April 8, 2025, the OC of this organizing effort began to distribute union cards in the workplace. In the latter half of the month, WGAW management learned of this effort, and began to pull staffers into one-on-one meetings to interrogate them over union activity. They were threatened with layoffs and cut benefits if they signed union cards. Two days after these interrogations began, on April 21, Fátima Murrieta, an organizing committee member and working as a member organizer for the WGAW was terminated. When asked for a statement, a representative for the WGAW told The Hollywood Reporter that she was terminated for cause, and denied that her firing was for union activity. Nevertheless, in response to her termination, the staff of the WGAW joined together to interrupt an executive meeting on the following day, April 22, to deliver to Ellen Stutzman, the WGAW executive director, their demand to organize, and their further demand for Murrieta's reinstatement.[6][9]
Shortly after this announcement, the staff union voted to name themselves the Writers Guild Staff Union (WGSU), to commemorate the GSU unionization effort that came before them. On April 29, Rev. Matthew Wait of First Lutheran Church of Culver City & Palms arrived at WGAW Headquarters to facilitate the union card count, since he was a neutral third party and member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE Justice). He announced that the WGSU had achieved majority support, and the WGAW voluntarily recognized the WGSU.[10]
CBA negotiations
In the following months, the WGSU performed bargaining surveys with their membership, and collected candidates for their Bargaining Committee (BC). They held their first bargaining session with Management on September 9, 2025, in the boardroom of the Guild Headquarters.[11]
The WGSU has accused the WGAW of ignoring the vast majority of their proposals, and instead initially proposing the status quo employee handbook. Since then and over the course of five months, the WGSU has alleged that the WGAW has engaged in multiple counts of surface bargaining, and has filed unfair labor practice charges to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that the WGAW has several times "refused to bargain".[12]
The WGAW has denied this, saying that they have delivered multiple comprehensive proposals to the staff union which provide for an increase in benefits, protections, and wages.
Strike action
In January 2026, the WGSU Bargaining Committee recommended to their membership that they vote to authorize a strike. On January 29, the WGSU announced that 100 of their members participated in the strike authorization vote, with an approval of 82%. They held further bargaining sessions with management, but the results of these talks remained unfruitful, and the elected leadership of the union decided to call for a walkout at noon on February 17. Their strike is based upon their allegations of Unfair Labor Practices.[13]
The WGAW responded by sending an email to all staff, encouraging them to work from home during the duration of the strike. They published an FAQ on the Writers Guild of America West website, including information which the staff union disputes as misleading and dishonest.
The WGSU erected an inflatable Scabby the Rat on the intersection of Third & Fairfax to protest the WGAW's use of strikebreaking labor, their bad faith bargaining, and their unfair labor practices. Industry trade magazines and newspapers took note of Scabby's presence outside of the Guild Headquarters, commenting on the irony that such a symbol was being weaponized against a labor union. Articles frequently featured photos of Scabby underneath the Writers Guild of America West facade.[14]
The strike drew intense reactions from politicians as well as the film and labor industries. The staff of WGA East, represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) Local 318, sent one of their shop stewards to Los Angeles from New York City to support the West staffers.[15] Writers, often wearing their trademark blue strike shirts, joined the picket line in support of the staff, and the picketers were further joined by community allies, such as members of SAG-AFTRA, Starbucks Workers United, Production Assistants United, and Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles.[16] Reverend Wait returned to the WGAW Headquarters to join the picket line, announcing in a speech that WGAW Management had promised him during the April card check that they would bargain in good faith, and that they had broken that promise.[10]
San Pedro offer
The WGSU requested that the WGAW management team bargain again amid the strike. The WGAW requested that the staff union source a "neutral location", and the two parties met at the union hall for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 56 in San Pedro on February 22. The two sides were unable to come to terms, and the WGSU announced that the WGAW management team was still invested in surface bargaining. On the following Tuesday, February 24, WGAW management called WGSU leadership for a sidebar over the phone, where they informed the staff union that their previous proposal in San Pedro was to be their last, best, and final (LBF) offer and that they would not be negotiating further.
Cancellation of the WGAW Awards ceremony
Stutzman followed up the phone call by immediately sending an email to all staff with the details of the offer, and informed the recipients that if the deal were not accepted by February 27, Management would cancel the upcoming Los Angeles ceremony of the 78th Writers Guild of America Awards. In the email Stutzman sent to writers, she chose not to inform them of this threat to cancel the awards, but the WGSU quickly took to Instagram to inform the public and the media that the awards show was under threat of cancellation.[17][18]
2026 Writers Guild Awards L.A. Show is Cancelled[sic] WGAW would not ask attendees to cross a picket line, as PNSWU [sic] strike continues.
The WGSU refused to entertain the San Pedro offer, describing it as "insulting". The deadline passed, and WGAW management announced the awards show's cancellation via their press room. They acknowledged that the WGSU would likely picket the event, and that they did not want to ask the nominees or other attendees to cross a picket line.[20] WGSU members gave statements to the press, expressing sadness over the show's cancellation. Guild staff are the ones who typically crew the event, and the last minute cancellation was seen as a waste of all the work and money already invested into staging the show in the first place.[21] Writers responded to the announced cancellation with general frustration, citing it as an example of the losses incurred by Management's refusal to bargain in good faith.[22]
After the awards show cancellation, Atsuko Okatsuka, the comedian who had been chosen to host the 78th annual awards, announced on March 6 that she would be headlining a Benefit Comedy Show for the striking workers instead. In a quote to The Hollywood Reporter, Okatsuka said, "I'm a union girl... We're only as strong as the people behind the scenes!! We're one unit, so we must move as such. I was supposed to host the awards this Saturday. A day of celebrating the hard work of artists in one of the strongest unions in the U.S.. But could we really celebrate while the staff, who help support the union are asking to be heard of their needs? I'm honored to stand with them."[23]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
