WGA West Upholds Board Vote by 54% to Remove 2 Members Over Strike Violations

The members of the Writers Guild of America West voted on Friday to uphold the expulsion of two writers accused of writing during the 2023 strike, but to rescind a public rebuke of a writer who made a joke on Facebook.

The WGA West board voted earlier this year to kick out Roma Roth and Edward Drake for performing forbidden “writing services” — what the union calls “scab writing” — during the 148-day strike. They appealed, but 54% of the voting membership backed the board’s decision in a tally that concluded on Friday.

Edward John Drake, Roma Roth and Julie Bush were accused of prohibited writing activities during the stoppage, while Tim Doyle was censured for an offensive social media post that compared being on strike to being lynched.

The WGA West board voted last week to expel Drake and Roth, the guild’s harshest penalty. Bush was temporarily suspended and given a lifetime ban from serving as a strike captain. Doyle was publicly censured but that was rescinded in Friday’s vote.

Drake, writer-director of the indie film “Guns Up,” allegedly engaged in “scab writing” and withheld key documents from investigators, the board said. He has denied any wrongdoing, saying he only made minor script adjustments as a director and was being punished for refusing to “name names.”

“This has been a horrible ordeal,” Drake wrote in his appeal, according to Variety. “I have been living under the guillotine of fear for months.”

Roth, who worked as showrunner on “Sullivan’s Crossing” during the strike, broke stories and revised scripts in violation of strike rules, the board stated. She maintained she stopped writing as the strike began and continued as a non-writing producer. She criticized the WGA board for “send[ing] out mass emails during the voting round to tip the scale in their favor and unfairly influence what was supposed to be a fair appeals process.”

She also encouraged members to run for a position on the board “to address these serious issues” raised during this inquiry.

Bush was accused of revising a script for a pilot about Elon Musk during the strike. She argued that she sought guild lawyers’ guidance and was not paid for the work due to the production company’s failure to meet WGA standards.

On Friday, she said she will take the case to the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. She thanked the members who voted for her: “I believe the closeness of the vote signals that members do not like what has happened here. I have never seen a Guild vote below 90% so to me, losing by just 59 votes is meaningful,” Variety reported.

Doyle defended his Facebook post as “gallows humor” about the dread writers were feeling about their industry’s future. The board cited Doyle at the time for “conduct prejudicial to the welfare of the Guild.” Doyle’s lawyer argued that the guild overstepped its powers in policing his speech on social media.

Originally, Doyle was given a confidential censure and told to undergo equity and inclusion training, according to Variety.

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