WGA East and SAG-AFTRA Joint Statement on Federal Court Ruling Endangering Reporting on Workers and Labor Unions

The Writers Guild of America, East, AFL-CIO, and SAG-AFTRA represent tens of thousands of people working in entertainment and media. Our members are actors and writers for dramas and comedies for television, the movies, and the internet. We represent thousands of people who write, produce, anchor, and report for broadcast, cable, and online news. SAG-AFTRA and the WGAE are deeply distressed by a federal court decision permitting Starbucks to subpoena a wide range of communications between workers seeking to unionize and journalists seeking to report about the struggle.

There are two fundamental issues at stake here: One, the ability of working people to communicate openly and freely about their struggles, which includes talking with journalists without fear of being surveilled by their employers or being retaliated against. Two, the ability of journalists to get information about vital labor struggles without worrying that their communications – and their sources - will be revealed, and that their access to reliable information will be compromised. Allowing employers to subpoena communications between journalists and working people who seek a voice on the job, who exercise their right to engage in collective action, will inevitably chill the rights of both the journalists and the workers. Make no mistake, employers that subpoena these communications are not neutral truth-seekers. They are seeking ammunition to fight their employees’ efforts to organize. We are talking about employers that seek to thwart their employees’ efforts to build their own power, to address real concerns on the job, to engage in collective bargaining to improve their conditions. We hope this decision is reconsidered by the district court or overturned by the Court of Appeals.

About SAG-AFTRA

SAG-AFTRA represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other entertainment and media professionals. SAG-AFTRA members are the faces and voices that entertain and inform America and the world. A proud affiliate of the AFL-CIO, SAG-AFTRA has national offices in Los Angeles and New York and local offices nationwide representing members working together to secure the strongest protections for entertainment and media artists into the 21st century and beyond. Visit SAG-AFTRA online at SAGAFTRA.org.