Reality show is targeted by guild
The Writers Guild of America, West has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against the producers of the reality TV show “America’s Next Top Model.”
The complaint, filed Monday, alleges that the show’s producers violated federal labor laws by eliminating the jobs of 12 writers in retaliation for their decision to go on strike in July.
“This is illegal strike breaking, an insult to the Hollywood talent community and an embarrassment to this industry,” said Patric M. Verrone, the guild’s president.
The guild, which backed the strike as part of an ongoing campaign to organize writers who craft story lines for reality TV shows, is asking that the workers be reinstated and compensated for lost wages.
Ken Mok, executive producer of the show, said: “When our story producers walked off the job, we exercised our right to sustain production during the strike.”
Mok added that he was producing the show using editors covered under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, whose president, Thomas C. Short, has complained that the guild’s reality TV organizing drive was encroaching on his union’s jurisdiction, a claim the writers deny.
The hit reality show hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks has garnered big ratings for the CW, forged by CBS Corp. and Warner Bros. Television from the WB and UPN networks.
The rift began last summer when writers on the show signed cards seeking to be represented by the guild.
Anisa Productions Inc., the company headed by Mok, accused the guild of seeking to circumvent federal rules that allow secret ballot elections overseen by the labor relations board.
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