{"id":662342,"date":"2025-04-12T04:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T01:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-one-writers-guild-member-expelled-for-work-during-the-2023-strike-is-appealing-the-decision\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T04:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T01:50:16","slug":"why-one-writers-guild-member-expelled-for-work-during-the-2023-strike-is-appealing-the-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-one-writers-guild-member-expelled-for-work-during-the-2023-strike-is-appealing-the-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Why One Writers Guild Member, Expelled for Work During the 2023 Strike, Is Appealing the Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tNearly two years ago, at the outset of the first writers\u2019 strike in 15 years, Edward Drake made some adjustments to the script<\/a> of the low-budget indie he was directing in the interest of the safety and welfare of his cast and crew. Nearly a year later, his union expelled him after a discipline procedure that he claims violated the union\u2019s own constitution and federal labor law.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s according to an appeal letter of the decision from Drake that became accessible to members of the Writers Guild of America on Friday, alongside the union\u2019s position statement and reply to Drake\u2019s allegations, painting a starkly different account of the situation. Drake is one of four WGA West members pursuing an appeal in a bid to change their situations. Members will have a chance to peruse both sides\u2019 arguments before a voting period takes place between May 6 and 9 that will determine whether the discipline will be preserved or an alternative action will be taken.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documents that were released in Drake\u2019s case and an interview that The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> conducted with Drake offer a rare look under the hood of the WGA\u2019s often shrouded internal discipline process, a procedure that has in the past ensnared the likes of Jay Leno<\/a> and Joan Rivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview, Drake said he pursued the appeal to the membership in order to bring more transparency and accountability to the union\u2019s discipline procedure. \u201cIf it can happen to me, it can happen to any guild member,\u201d the writer-director said. \u201cThey asked for my trust and then weaponized it against me.\u201d The Writers Guild of America West declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dispute stems from Drake\u2019s work on the set of low-budget indie Guns Up<\/em>, a film he also wrote, with physical production taking place over 18 days in June and July 2023 in New Jersey. Kevin James and Christina Ricci starred in the Millennium Media<\/a> action comedy, centered on a former cop-turned-mob lackey attempting to save his family after a job gone wrong.<\/p>\n

\n\tDrake freely admits to making some script adjustments on the set, but he says they corresponded with his role as a director, not a writer, and tackled crucial concerns. \u201cTo address health and safety issues that arose during principal photography, I made script adjustments in my capacity as a director that were in line with the DGA [Directors Guild of America, the directors\u2019 union] advice to hyphenate writer-directors of the time\u201d \u2014 including moving an outdoors scene indoors due to smoke from that year\u2019s Canadian wildfires, Drake writes in his appeal letter.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn its response to Drake\u2019s letter, the WGA points out that Guns Up<\/em> was not a DGA production and Drake isn\u2019t a member of the union. Drake maintained in an interview with THR <\/em>that the production initially promised the film would be DGA and he still attempted to abide by DGA rules.<\/p>\n

\n\tWriter-directors were in a unique bind at this time: The WGA\u2019s strike rules forbade writer-directors like Drake from performing work that the DGA considers directing work, like cutting for time and making changes due to \u201cunforeseen contingencies.\u201d Still, directors might have been required to make these sorts of minor script changes, the DGA warned its members during the strike, a situation that set off a confusion among many in the writer-director cohort, especially early on in the work stoppage.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his letter Drake says an entertainment attorney, DGA and WGA members told him these modifications wouldn\u2019t break the strike rules. He would have made \u201c1,001 creative changes\u201d if he wasn\u2019t attempting to honor the strike, he writes. He walked the picket lines and was supportive of the union. In its reply to Drake\u2019s appeal letter, the WGA counters that Drake never consulted the union itself during the strike.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe script was changed in other ways beyond his control, Drake says: Production tweaked and shortened some scenes for \u201csides<\/a>.\u201d On one shoot day he received a rewritten version of a scene he was set to film and was told secondhand that a producer had done the unauthorized rewrites. This kind of last-minute surprise isn\u2019t unusual in the low-budget indie world, Drake said in the interview: \u201cI even went to the guild about it [as a breach of the union\u2019s Minimum Basic Agreement] multiple times over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce the union\u2019s investigative body of strike-time infractions \u2014 the \u201cStrike Rules Compliance Committee\u201d \u2014 got wind of the situation, committee head Glen Mazzara investigated. Drake explained the situation to Mazzara and declined requests to provide drafts of the script and name the producer he heard had rewritten his scene.<\/p>\n

\n\tDrake says in his appeal letter that he feared legal exposure from both the studio, which owned the scripts, and the producer. Moreover, he didn\u2019t feel right naming someone whose work he had heard about only secondhand. This set up a dilemma: The WGA strike rules call for members to \u201cinform the Guild of the name of any writer you have reason to believe is engaged in any strike breaking activity or scab writing.\u201d The WGA, moreover, states Drake did not mention his lack of firsthand knowledge of alleged strikebreaking in his hearing.<\/p>\n

\n\tMazzara appears to have accepted these explanations. Drake says the committee head heard him out and told him he didn\u2019t believe the issue would go much further than that. (Mazzara declined to comment.) Nevertheless, the union eventually summoned Drake to a disciplinary hearing to take place in May 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tDrake admitted to being \u201cso na\u00efve\u201d about the situation. He did not bring an attorney or prepare a defense for his hearing. He said he felt assured by his interactions with Mazzara and by a pre-trial meeting with a WGA representative, where he claims to have been told the hearing was just a \u201cformality,\u201d that he would be \u201cfine\u201d and that the matter would remain confidential, he said in the THR <\/em>interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut when he arrived, he says he encountered a surprise: \u201cThe friendly WGA representative I spoke to pre-trial was actually the WGAW\u2019s Prosecutor,\u201d he writes. During the procedure \u2014 which took place before five writers, WGA legal counsel, the WGA representative, Mazzara, a stenographer and two individuals who didn\u2019t identify themselves, he said \u2014 he claims he was denied the ability to call a witness, a WGA staffer who could have offered context for his argument. During the hearing he says he assented to send the union drafts of his script, as they had previously asked for; he says the WGA never followed up on that offer, though he had been charged with declining to provide them.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the proceedings, Mazzara testified that he felt Drake had been \u201cforthcoming\u201d and should have been sent a letter rather than subjected to harsher discipline. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel that should be escalated. The Strike Rules Committee really wanted that name [of the potential strikebreaking producer],\u201d Mazzara said in an excerpt of the trial transcript included in Drake\u2019s appeal letter. \u00a0A few months later, in a text to Drake included in the appeal letter, Mazzara wrote that he did not believe Drake was a \u201cscab\u201d: \u201cIt was a mistake at a confusing time. I believed you and still do.\u201d Still, under the WGA\u2019s disciplinary process, the SRCC only investigates and does not determine guilt.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trial committee unanimously found Drake guilty, ruling that Drake lacked \u201cremorse\u201d and hadn\u2019t taken accountability for his actions. It recommended an 18-month suspension, with Drake able to be reinstated only after he named the producer who potentially rewrote his scene. The WGA West\u2019s board of directors, which had the final say, went further and voted to both expel Drake and make his excommunication from the union public, marking one of just two known examples of a WGA member being kicked out for breaking strike rules during the 2023 strike.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the WGA\u2019s view, it was a cut-and-dry case: Drake hadn\u2019t gone fully pencils-down while the rest of the membership was withholding its labor, end of story. \u201cScab writing cannot be tolerated. It is anathema to the culture of solidarity among the membership that makes the Guild a fighting union,\u201d the union says in its position statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Drake kept fighting to change the decision. Months after his trial, Drake did identify the producer who he suspected rewrote his scenes to the union. The studio and the producer had parted ways, and he felt his risk of liability had decreased, he says in the reply to the WGA\u2019s position statement. That action didn\u2019t sway the WGA West board to change its stance: \u201cHe did so only after he was expelled in an attempt to negotiate down his discipline,\u201d the WGA statement says.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Drake maintains that the union violated its own constitution by not allowing him to call his witness and infringed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act by failing to give him a \u201cfull and fair hearing.\u201d The WGA denies this, saying he \u201cshowed contempt for the process throughout,\u201d citing remarks from Drake during the hearing that the union should just kick him out. Drake argues these comments were made in frustration once he realized the hearing was adversarial.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, members will decide which argument they find most convincing \u2014 and whether Drake\u2019s actions merit him being kicked out of the union. For his part, Drake says his appeal is no longer about reinstatement into the guild: \u201cNothing will give me back a year of my life or negate the stress of this ordeal,\u201d he writes in his reply to the WGA\u2019s position statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tRather, he wants to draw attention to the process. He tells THR<\/em>, \u201cThis is about highlighting that the guild decided to ignore that the head of the SRCC, a guy who\u2019s been on two strike committees, ignore their own trial committee, go back on their word to keep all of this private [and] elevate the discipline. It\u2019s to shed light on an unfair process no member should ever be subjected to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRead the documents from each side below.<\/p>\n