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.
The WGSU alleged 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 attended their picket line in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles to walk with their staff in solidarity. The Writers Guild Staff Union is a local chapter of the Pacific Northwest Staff Union (PNWSU), an independent industrial union focusing on organizing the staff who work at labor unions.
This unprecedented labor action led to substantial media coverage, and placed the WGAW in the position to either complete the contract with their staff, or end up in the middle of renegotiations for the 2026 Minimum Basic Agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) without the assistance of the staff. The WGAW chose the latter, and abandoned negotiations with the staff union on March 16, declaring publicly that they would not move any further in the staff union's direction. Instead, they declared they would focus on negotiating the MBA, work that would have ordinarily included staff labor. And so, the WGSU was forced to set up a picket line outside of SAG-AFTRA Plaza where MBA negotiations were taking place. Rather than push for their management to bargain the staff union CBA, the WGAW negotiating committee chose to side with the strikebreaking management team throughout the entirety of the 2026 MBA negotiations. This led to conflict, as staff members expressed anger and resentment at ostensible leaders in the labor movement crossing their picket line.
Members of the WGAW Board of Directors, the elected officers of the Guild, and members of the Negotiating Committee made various public statements condemning the striking staff for their tactics. In contrast, the strike also led to condemnation of the WGAW's management by many writers, and the cancellation of the West ceremony of the 2026 Writers Guild of America Awards. The Writers Guild of America East were alone in hosting their portion of the ceremony, as their staff was not on strike.
The strike continued into May, when a tentative agreement was mediated between management and the staff on May 8. The WGSU agreed to withdraw their outstanding demand for a wage scale, while the WGAW agreed to allow for seniority protections in layoffs and withdrew their demand that the CBA's No Strike clause also ban all other forms of concerted union activity in the workplace. The CBA was overwhelmingly ratified on May 10 after an election with the membership at Plummer Park in West Hollywood. The staff returned to work on May 11.
Background
The Writers Guild of America West is one of two Writers Guild of America unions that represent screenwriters who work in the American film industry. Operating with the jurisdiction west of the Mississippi River and centered on the production hubs in and around Hollywood in the city of Los Angeles, the WGAW is far larger than its eastern counterpart, the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE). It has around 17,000 total members as of 2025.
Guild Staff Union (GSU) 2007-2012 The staff of the Writers Guild of America West had been nonunion and unprotected by a collective bargaining agreement since the decertification of the previous staff union, the Guild Staff Union (GSU) in 2012. 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 dissolved after a decertification campaign and election in 2012.
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.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.
Pacific Northwest Staff Union The Writers Guild West staff members who began to organize in secret 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 leadership and management of labor organizations. For this reason, PNWSU operates independently from the AFL-CIO. If they were affiliated with the AFL-CIO, as some staff unions are, it would place many of their employers in the same national organization. This is a large reason why staff union strikes are so vanishingly rare outside of PNWSU actions. Being independent allows for PNWSU to democratically choose their own organizing strategies and strike actions. In this position, PNWSU seeks to reform their employers to adopt radical democracy and an organizing model through their internal processes, contract bargaining, and strike action. In this instance, the Writers Guild of America West, despite operating in tandem nationally with the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), is also an independent union, while the WGAE is an AFL-CIO affiliate.
The Pacific Northwest Staff Union have organized and negotiated collective bargaining agreements for the staffmembers of many labor organizations, 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
The WGSU accused the WGAW of ignoring the vast majority of their proposals. Over the course of five months, the WGSU alleged that the WGAW engaged in multiple counts of surface bargaining, and filed unfair labor practice charges to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that the WGAW had at several times "refused to bargain".
The WGAW denied this, saying that they delivered multiple comprehensive proposals to the staff union which provided for an increase in benefits, protections, and wages.
Strike action
Strike authorization 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 was based upon their allegations of Unfair Labor Practices, which provides protection for employees not otherwise provided by an economic strike.
Scabby the Rat and WGAW rank-and-file 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 façade.
The strike drew intense reactions from politicians as well as the film and labor industries. 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.
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 informed the staff union that they were holding to their previous proposal in San Pedro they would not be negotiating further. The WGSU quickly took to Instagram to inform the public and the media that the 78th Writers Guild of America Awards was under threat of cancellation.
Cancellation of the 2026 WGAW Awards Ceremony
The WGSU refused to entertain the San Pedro offer. 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. WGSU members gave statements to the press, expressing sadness over the show's cancellation. Writers responded to the announced cancellation with frustration, citing it as an example of the losses incurred by Management's refusal to bargain in good faith.