The organizing efforts at Model, which are part of a broader campaign to organize reality TV, were led initially by the Writers Guild of America West. The union supported a dozen of the show's storytellers, who went on strike this summer in a bid to join the WGAW. Their efforts were hampered when IATSE stepped in and claimed the storytellers' work qualifies not as writing but as editing, which is already covered by an IATSE contract. The strikers were fired; in November the WGA filed a still-pending complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the firings were illegal. The NLRB will decide whether those workers will be covered by the WGA or IATSE.
The IATSE-WGA tug-of-war flared up again last week when IATSE President Thomas Short accused WGA leaders of "irresponsibility and incompetence" for nixing their early negotiations with producers for a new film and TV contract. The current contract expires Oct. 31, 2007. Nick Counter, the producers' lead negotiator, warned last month that the WGA's resistance to early talks could prompt studio and network execs to act as if a "de facto strike" were in effect and begin to slow production almost immediately.