Seven weeks into the strike, unionized employees of the Writers Guild of America West will lose their health care benefits on Wednesday.
WGA West employees may be covered by the Producers and Writers Guild of America (PWGA) health plan, the same plan offered to members of the Hollywood union. Employees receive coverage on a month-to-month basis as long as they worked 31 hours per week in the previous month.
Employees belonging to the Writers Guild Employees Union (WGSU), who have been on strike since February 17, say they learned on Tuesday that they would lose their eligibility starting Wednesday.
Missy Brown, co-president of WGSU, said in an interview that union members didn’t learn until Tuesday afternoon about the loss of coverage, and that was only after she found a PWGA Health Plan employee who would talk to her. “I find it so crazy that we weren’t notified,” she says.
Brown said she has left repeated voicemails with several employees at the PWGA Health Plan offices over the past few days to determine the future of coverage for striking members. She eventually “begged the receptionist to find me a human” at the offices, and was then told by the employee she was in contact with that she and the other striking union members would lose coverage on April 1.
WGA West confirmed the loss of coverage on Tuesday. “Striking employees can opt for continued COBRA coverage if they wish to be covered by the PWGA Health Fund in April. The WGAW cannot make contributions on behalf of employees who did not work in March and have no earnings,” the union said in a statement.
In addition to the alleged lack of communication about the loss of coverage, WGSU members lamented that the employer did not attempt to rectify the situation. In an Instagram post, the union stated that “during the 2023 Writers’ Strike, WGAW and AMPTP negotiated to expand health coverage for writers for the duration of the strike.”
There was no such extension for the striking WGSU members, although they are in a different position than writers in 2023 — the PWGA health plan is jointly managed by the studio and union leaders and employees negotiate only with the union side. WGA West negotiated an extension of its health coverage as part of the strike settlement agreement, rather than in the middle of the strike.
“I’m sure there was something that could have been come up with to preserve our health care,” Brown says.
The latest dispute represents an escalation of already high tensions between WGSU and WGA West. For weeks, the employee union has been picketing outside the building as WGA West negotiators engage in high-stakes negotiations with studios and banners. Video I posted diverse On March 27, protesters were shown chanting “Shame!” When members and leaders of the WGA West Negotiating Committee entered the building to conduct negotiations.
Meanwhile, the WGA West and WGSU remain at odds over key elements of the association’s first decade. The two sides face issues such as the role of seniority in layoffs and the size of wages for union members.
