THE US REPORT

Writers at Tyler Perry Studio to take strike action – will picket Grand Opening and ask invited guests not to attend.

(Los Angeles)—The Writers Guild of America, West issued a news release on Thursday stating WGAW is taking on the fight for justice of writers who were fired when they tried to get a union contract with Tyler Perry’s production company, House of Payne, LLC. The Guild has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that House of Payne unlawfully fired four writers in retaliation for their union activity. The charge also alleges that the company bargained in bad faith with the Guild, which is seeking to negotiate a contract covering the writers on Perry’s cable television series House of Payne and Meet the Browns.

Nikki Finke, writing for Deadline Hollywood Daily, said, “One of [Sen.] Barack Obama's staunchest supporters and prized campaigners and film biographers from the motion picture and television business has just been accused of union busting…”

Finke says Obama had been invited to the grand opening of Perry’s studio in Atlanta on Saturday. “ But if Obama attends he will be met by picket lines…”

Perry is friends with Oprah Winfrey whose support for Obama is well-known. Will Obama risk a negative union photo-op by attending Perry’s grand opening? Or will Perry yield to union demands? My wager is on the latter.

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