Wrongful firing alleged by ex-Writers Guild employee
A former employee of the Writers Guild of America, West, is alleging that the union wrongfully fired her after she questioned the legality of its distribution of foreign copyright levies to writers.
In a lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Teri Mial, a former estates and trusts manager with the guild, says she was terminated in July purportedly because of a threat she made to a colleague.
In fact, she alleges, she was being punished for speaking to federal investigators about the guild’s collection and distribution of the levies.
The lawsuit states that the U.S. Department of Labor has been investigating the issue. Guild spokeswoman Jody Frisch declined to comment on the suit but said: “The guild doesn’t know anything about a federal investigation.”
The levies are collected from foreign countries that tax sales of blank DVDs and videocassettes to compensate writers and other copyright holders. Foreign collection societies send to the guild about $6 million a year.
Mial, a nine-year employee at the guild, alleges that the union deliberately and illegally refused to disburse all of the foreign levies and failed to account for the money properly.
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