Suspended Writers Guild West Member Reacts to Strike Discipline Vote: 'This Was Never, Ever a Clear-Cut Case'
On Friday, the results of a Writers Guild of America West vote over discipline for members accused of breaking strike rules signaled a divided union, at least on this issue.
In the cases of three writers, disciplinary measures initially decided by the union's board were upheld, but by tight margins (between 52 and nearly 55 percent). A fourth writer's 'public censure' sentence over a Facebook post considered offensive was overturned in favor of an alternative action, months after the union publicly admonished the member, with 62 percent voting to throw out the punishment.
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Julie Bush, a union member for roughly 15 years since she got her card through Sons of Anarchy, was one of the members whose discipline was confirmed by the proceedings on Friday.
On May 22, weeks after the 2023 writers' strike began, Bush sent a non-signatory company a revision of a pilot she had written. Writers are forbidden by the union's Working Rule 8 from working with non-signatory companies, but Bush says the company had promised it would eventually become a signatory and she was working with the union to make that happen. Once the work stoppage began, strike rules dictated that union members couldn't work for struck companies, which the company wasn't at that point.
Bush has said she 'deeply regret[s]' sending the script, which created 'confusion and hurt regarding guild rules;' the union called it 'scab writing.' Eventually, a five-member trial committee and the union's board didn't find Bush guilty of breaking strike rules. Instead, Bush was disciplined for engaging in conduct 'prejudicial to the welfare of the guild' (an infringement of an article in the union's constitution) and of writing for a non-signatory company.
She was sentenced by the board to a suspension until 2026 and was permanently forbidden for holding non-elected office in the union, a harsher punishment than the one that the trial committee initially recommended.
Now, members have voted to ratify that temporary exile. In an interview, Bush discussed why she decided to file an appeal in the first place, her feelings about the close results and why she's planning on reporting recent proceedings to the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board.
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the WGA West for comment.
What is your initial reaction to today's results?
I'm obviously disappointed. The guild [has been] my main community since I first got to L.A. with a dream, and I continue to love these people and the guild. I had received so many wonderful messages that I guess I sort of fooled myself into thinking that I would prevail. So I'm pretty upset right now, I'll be honest. And I'm surprised and upset and disappointed.
But the way that the Guild has evolved in recent years, they've sort of become this kind of top-down, authoritarian structure where no dissent will be brooked. Everybody has to march one way. And so in a way, I shouldn't be surprised at all. I really do feel like that's what this is all about, and I feel like that's what drove this outcome.
I'm wondering if you can respond to the vote tally that the Writers Guild provided, because in your case and others the results were close.
In my case, the actual vote was 745 in favor of upholding and 686 in favor of restoring the trial committee's decision. That's the difference of just 59 votes. I have never in all my years in the guild — that's 10 years as a full, current, active member — seen a guild vote come in at less than 90 percent one direction. This is almost a literal 50-50 tie. So I just told Van Robichaux, who was the wonderful guild member who represented me through this entire ordeal for free, in an act of incredible solidarity, 'I hope that you are very proud of what you have done here.' Because this is a great act of David and Goliath here that he and I undertook. So I believe that this marks a turning point. I believe that guild members are ready for a change, and I think that that's what this vote is signaling.
Why did you decided to appeal the ruling in your case — what thinking went into that?
When they were first making noise about charging me, I couldn't believe it because I knew that it was questionable, very debatable whether I had broken any rules. I knew from the start that I had not broken any strike rules, and that was actually confirmed by the trial committee, and I knew that it was debatable and questionable whether I had even broken Working Rule 8. And so the fact that the SRCC [Strike Rules Compliance Committee] even indicted me to the board, that the board recommended me to the trial committee, at each step, I was surprised because I didn't think I had broken any rules and I honestly believe that each of those groups didn't understand the rules clearly. I think that this was a case of these groups being just so eager to find any scapegoat so that they could take somebody to the membership to be like, 'See, see, we got somebody.' This was just never, ever a clear-cut case of me doing anything wrong, ever.
Can you explain the 'alternative action' that you proposed as your punishment and why you felt that was appropriate?
What the board came up with in their new appeals process that they completely invented, which was not part of the [guild] constitution, they said to me, 'You need to propose your own alternative action that the members will vote on.' And so I said, okay, so I'm going to participate in this new imaginary, made-up process, under protest, because I was afraid that if I didn't participate that I would then waive my right to appeal. So I submitted the specific language of my alternative action. I was very careful with how I worded it because as writer, we understand that the wording of language, particularly in something this heated, is very important.
In my memory, the way I worded it was something like, 'Restore the decision of the trial committee: A private letter of censure and three-year ban from serving as a captain.' That was the exact punishment that the trial committee handed down to me. The problem is that when I actually saw the ballot that the election department submitted to the membership to vote on, they stripped that important context from the language of my alternative action [that this was the original punishment proposed by the trial committee]. So then they just had it saying, 'Julie Bush's alternative action is private letter of censure and three-year ban on serving as captain.' And then I actually saw members debating it in the private WGA Facebook group, and they were actually saying, 'Why did she want to be a captain so badly if she doesn't even understand the rules?' And the entire point is that's not the punishment I made up for myself; that's the punishment the trial committee assigned for me. So the election department stripping away that language, it actually makes a big difference.
Has your view on the guild changed since undergoing this process?
Yes, definitely. I used to be one of those people that completely 100 percent backs the board, whatever the board says, I'm your soldier. And I just don't feel that way anymore. I've just really come to realize that they don't necessarily know what they're doing and that they don't even know the rules that well, and that while they purport to be experts in these matters, they're just not, and they don't even know the laws that well.
What are your next steps following today's result?
We're going directly to the Department of Labor and the NLRB. I'm going to send them everything I have and sort of let them determine exactly what to call what's happened here.
Anything else you'd like to add?
The message I just want to convey is I have wanted to be a writer my entire life; this is my identity. This experience has been absolutely devastating for me. Getting into the guild was one of the best things that happened to me my entire life, and I can't believe this has happened to me. It's been absolutely devastating, horrifying, crushing. It will take me years to get over this, if ever.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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