Seven weeks into their strike, unionized staffers at the Writers Guild of America West will lose their health care benefits on Wednesday.
WGA West staffers can be covered by the Producer-Writers Guild of America (PWGA) Health Plan, the same plan that is offered to the Hollywood union’s members. Staffers accrue coverage on a month-to-month basis as long as they work 31 hours per week the previous month.
Staffers unionized with the Writers Guild Staff Union (WGSU), who have been out on strike since Feb. 17, say they learned on Tuesday that they will lose eligibility starting Wednesday.
Missy Brown, the co-chair of the 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 staffer who would speak with her. “I just find this very crazy that we weren’t notified of this,” she says.
Brown said that she left repeated voicemails with multiple staffers at the PWGA Health Plan offices over the last few days to determine the future of striking members’ coverage. She eventually “begged a receptionist to please find me a human being” at the offices and the staffer she was connected with then informed her that she and other striking guild members will be losing coverage April 1.
The WGA West confirmed the loss of coverage on Tuesday. “Striking employees can elect COBRA continuation coverage if they wish to be covered by the PWGA Health Fund in April. The WGAW cannot make contributions on behalf of staff 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 around their loss of coverage, WGSU members are lamenting that their employer has not tried to rectify the situation. In an Instagram post, the union stated that “during the 2023 writers strike, WGAW and AMPTP negotiated to extend health coverage for writers throughout the strike.”
There has been no such extension for striking WGSU members, though they are in a different position than the writers in 2023 — the PWGA Health Plan is jointly administered by studio and union leaders and staffers are only negotiating with the union side. The WGA West negotiated its health coverage extension as part of its strike settlement agreement, rather than mid-strike.
Contends Brown, ”I’m sure there was something that could have been worked out to retain our healthcare.”
The latest dispute marks an escalation of already-high tensions between the WGSU and the WGA West. For weeks the staff union has been picketing outside the building where WGA West negotiators are locked in high-stakes negotiations with studios and streamers. A video published by Variety on March 27 showed protestors chanting “shame!” as WGA West negotiating committee members and leaders entered the building for negotiations.
Meanwhile, the WGA West and the WGSU remain at loggerheads over key elements of the union’s first contract. The two sides are stuck on issues like the role of seniority in layoffs and a wage scale for union members.
