No "Right To Work" at ITV

ITV CEO Brent Montgomery

The people who craft content for ITV need a Writers Guild of America, East contract with basic protections found in all Guild agreements, including union security.

Union security reflects the basic principle that everyone who benefits from a union contract should share the burden – that membership is part of the privilege and responsibility of union representation. Guild members pay dues so the union can negotiate pay rates and benefits and all of the other basic terms and conditions, and so the union can enforce those terms. Dues enable the Guild to offer programs that help members advance their careers and engage with other members on issues that matter. Dues enable us to build a stronger union for the future as our industry continues to transform.

Please add your name to this petition.

Thank you for your support!

To: ITV CEO Brent Montgomery
From: [Your Name]

To the attention of ITV CEO Mr. Brent Montgomery,

​We stand united with the Writers Guild of America, East, which has been organizing writer-producers in nonfiction/“reality” TV for years. Hundreds of people who craft stories for basic cable have voted for Guild representation, who have negotiated solid contracts.

ITV, the biggest nonfiction TV production company in the U.S., has been fighting the Guild and refuses to agree to basic Guild terms and conditions at ITV/Kirkstall and Leftfield.

At the bargaining table, ITV refuses to accept any form of “union security,” which is part of every Writers Guild contract and a standard part of any entertainment union contract.

ITV is embracing the same logic far-right entities use to oppose union security through the so-called “right to work” movement.

If you were not aware, the principal funders of the right to work movement are the Koch brothers, prominent backers of President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. The Koch brothers follow in the footsteps of their father, Fred Koch, who was a leader of the right to work movement decades ago (and who also founded the rather lunatic hard-right organization, the John Birch Society).

The first big proponent of “right to work” was Vance Muse, who founded the Christian Americans Association – an avowedly white supremacist organization. Muse argued that union security provisions would force white and black workers to join the same organization and to call each other “brother,” which he considered an abomination. (His organization was also anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic, by the way.)

In other words, ITV’s opposition to a Guild security provision puts it in very bad company, politically and historically speaking.

We, the undersigned, strongly support the Writers Guild of America, East and demand ITV accept a contract with union security.