Writers Strike Dos and Don’ts for Pre-WGA Writers

As explained by a member of the Writers Guild of America.

If you’re a WGA member, you can check out the 2023 strike rules here. But what if you are pre-WGA. What are the do’s and don’ts?

Moviemaker conducted an interview with screenwriter Christopher Kyle, the secretary-treasurer of the WGA-East, and asked him several key questions about what aspiring Guild writers should be cognizant about in terms of what they can and can’t do during the strike. Here is an excerpt from that interview.

MovieMaker: We’ve been scanning Twitter and Reddit and lots of other places, and there are a lot of questions from pre-WGA writers about how to conduct themselves. They don’t want to accidentally scab or cross the picket line unintentionally. So I wanted to share some of the questions I’m seeing.

Christopher Kyle: The main and most important thing is to not work for, or have contact with, signatory companies — the companies we’re striking against. That means don’t take a job writing on a film or TV show that’s covered by our contract. Don’t have meetings with executives from companies. Don’t option a script that you wrote on spec to a company — anything like that. Those are the kinds of things that are strictly prohibited. And if someone did those things, then it would be unlikely they would ever…