My WGA expulsion sends a scary message

On August 8, the WGA announced that Director Park Chan-Wook and I had been expelled from membership for our work on “The Sympathizer”, a HBO program that had been postproduction during the strike. The affirmation was that we had violated the rules of strike with some of our work in the edition suite. The announcement was accompanied by a majestic “thank you for your service” at the internal jury which had investigated the allegations. It was a strange gesture, given that the guild board of directors had completely ignored the jury’s recommendations.

Months after the strike resolution and that our program had been broadcast, the WGA trained a trial committee to investigate an anonymous complaint. The committee’s work was to hear evidence and make a recommendation to the WGA board of directors to find out if a strike violation had occurred and, in the affirmative, if disciplinary measures were justified. The jury was made up of WGA writers and they took work seriously. The hearing lasted two exhausting days. It was complete and complicated due to the obvious and ambiguous rides between our executive producers / showrunners’ roles and – in the case of Chan -Wook – the director, who was authorized to work, and the writers, who were not. No one from the guild management was there for the procedure, just their lawyers.

In the end, the five jurors issued the following recommendations. I quote them at length for the good of the board of directors, which obviously never read them:

“We note that the respondents demonstrated in a credible way that their violations of strike rules were not intentional …”

“We also note that the respondents have crediblely demonstrated that their violations were born out of misunderstandings on the lines between their roles as writers in post-production and their roles as executive producers, editors and directors, and that they believed to comply with good faith with the strike protocol …”.

“Based on the conclusions of the above facts and discussions, we recommend that the board of directors issues a letter of confidential censorship to the two respondents …”

Obviously, the board of directors has completely ignored all of this. Instead of the lowest level of punishment, a private letter, they gave us their highest expulsion. The penalty was intentionally undemocratic, deliberately cruel and exaggerated.

There are various theories to explain why, in particular, we have been targeted-but the intention behind the decision is undeniable: it was a frightening tactic to intimidate their adhesion, in particular the “Gréniates” (showrunner-director-repairing).

It saddens me that any guild envisages such a necessary action or likely to be effective.

I am a proud and long -standing member of three other unions and guilds in the entertainment industry. I consulted them on policy declarations and I put pressure on their behalf before the parliament of my country. When I felt that my guilds were moving away from their message, I contacted them and they always listened and answered (without their lawyers present). I can therefore say with a certain confidence that this type of tyrannical behavior is not endemic for organized work. It is a leadership problem. Normally, if the leaders of a guild learned that well -intentioned members involuntarily struggled with the rules, they would re -examine the rules. Rewrite them. Make them less vague and more realistic for the benefit of all membership.

No justification has been given for why the WGA board of directors did not take into account its own jury in our case, and it is difficult to think about it.

The most generous excuse I can find is that the board of directors has been rolled by their lawyers who know nothing about the way television is really made and which, in their prosecutor, has made the leadership forget. Theory is a section, but on the basis of what I have seen in court, there can be a truth. If yes, let me recall them respectfully:

You are writers. You direct a scholarship of writers in solving writers problems. Empathy and understanding are the tools of the profession. From time to time, give lawyers for a day off.

Publisher’s note: The WGA published the following answer.

The constitution of the WGAW requires that the board of directors – the management body elected by the members of the WGAW – make the decision concerning the appropriate level of discipline for the members recognized as guilty of having violated the rules of strike. A trial committee made up of basic members declared McKellar guilty of providing writing services during the strike, including a creative overhaul of the pilot who rewritten the history of the pilot and writing dialogue. The Council determined that the expulsion was the appropriate consequence for such a serious violation.

McKellar responded to the union:

Obviously, I oppose this error of characterization of what has happened (“the affirmation according to which these editorial modifications constitute a writing for a struck company is absurd” to quote a juror), but I do not want to relate the case. The “rank East WGA. I read their divided decision and their vigorous letters of dissent. They prove them conscientious, intelligent and, by the way, the good writers. Yes, advice has the power to cancel them, but why should they?