Writers Guild West Names Members Who’ve Been Expelled or Disciplined for Breaking Strike Rules

The Writers Guild of America West has gone public with its discipline of six union members for allegedly writing during the labor group’s 2023 strike and one for a purported constitutional violation, a move that four writers have appealed, with one saying he was “punished for being transparent.”

Writers Julie Bush, Tim Doyle, Edward Drake and Roma Roth have all sought to overturn disciplinary rulings from the union’s board of directors, which followed hearings before five-member trial juries and investigations from a committee aimed at uncovering authorized work during the strike. The union announced the discipline and appeals to members on Friday.

The appeal materials show that Bush, a consulting producer on Manhunt, was suspended from WGA membership until 2026 and was barred from holding “non-elected guild office” due to alleged writing during the strike for a non-signatory company. Schooled and The Kids Are Alright executive producer Doyle was publicly censured for a Facebook post deemed “a racist and offensive depiction of a lynching,” as THR previously reported. Guns Up writer-director Drake was expelled from the union for allegedly “writing during the strike and failing to cooperate with the Strike Rules Compliance Committee” and Sullivan’s Crossing and Virgin River executive producer Roth was also expelled for allegedly writing during the strike for a non-signatory company.

In a statement, Drake called his discipline unjust and the process that led him there flawed. “The Board disregarded the findings of their own Trial Committee, as well as the Chair of the Strike Rules Compliance Committee, both of whom said I did not deserve to be expelled. Even the Supreme Court has upheld that directors are allowed to make script changes during a strike.”

Drake added, “As someone who doesn’t yet have a manager or agent, and has only worked on low-budget indies, the Board thought I was an easy target. But, isn’t protecting the most vulnerable the very the point of having a union? Instead, I was punished for being transparent, denied due process and a fair trial, and pressured to ‘name names’ without protection against legal threats.”

Bush and Doyle likewise call into question the board’s decision to hand them harsher punishments than the recommendations of their trial committees.

The trial committee recommended that Bush receive a confidential letter of censure and a ban from serving as a strike captain for three years. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Bush said, “A jury of my union peers found me innocent of breaking the Strike Rules in an eight-hour trial, but the guild decided to ignore their recommendation and punish me as though I did. To make matters worse, when I let them know I wanted to exercise my right to appeal the punishment at a private membership meeting, they denied me that right, instead passing a resolution to change the appeal process — in violation of the Guild Constitution and violation of federal labor law — presumably to make this appeal as public and punishing as possible.”

She added, “I love my union but not the actions that they have taken. Our union does not stand for illegal witch-hunts and kangaroo courts. I love the Guild, and I believe that standing up for my due process makes our Guild better and stronger.”

In his position statement, Doyle claimed that the union’s trial committee recommended a confidential censure for him after he underwent a disciplinary hearing. Instead, the board “decided to be harshly punitive with this very public shaming – a wildly disproportionate punishment for an offense which the Board’s own investigative committee concluded had been unknowing and unintentional.”

For her part, Roth called her excommunication from the guild “excessive and disproportionate” because she was not working for a signatory company, but for an independently financed Canadian TV series. She alleges that after a defective disciplinary process, the chair of her trial committee, a former public defender, “refused to sign the committees report, resigned and then wrote a four-page letter to the Board outlining her deep concerns over how flawed the discipline process was.”

THR has reached out to all who were accused for comment.

Per the constitution of the writers’ union, disciplined members can appeal the board’s decisions and call for a vote from members in good standing with the union. If the majority of members vote to keep the ruling in place, the discipline remains; if not, an “alternative action” proposed by the accused person will be undertaken.

The vote will take place online between 10 a.m. PT on May 6 and 2 p.m. PT on May 9.