Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where we are working hard to bring the newsletter back to three times a week.
Mike Elk
Writers Guild Staff Union Settles Contract
For nearly three months, the Writers Guild Staff Union (WGSU)had been on strike, demanding a first union contract from the Writers Guild.
The leadership of the Writers Guild of America West retaliated by cutting off health insurance for striking WGA West staff members, a move that many saw as hypocritical, given that the Writers Guild was negotiating a deal with the studios on behalf of its membership, with a heavy focus on healthcare.
On Friday , the Writers Guild Staff Union struck a deal with management. It includes the following provisions:
- Seniority provisions in layoff procedures that prioritize institutional knowledge and dedication to Writers Guild members.
- Minimum 12 percent increases for all Writers Guild staff over the course of the three-year term, including an eight percent increase for all in the 2026 calendar year.
- Raising the salary floor from $43,000 to $57,000 retroactive to August 11, 2025, significantly improves take-home pay for our lowest-paid members.
- Longevity increases retroactive to January 1, 2026, for any WGSU member who has been in the same position or grade for five, ten, or fifteen years.
- Conversion to a wage scale modeled after the wage scale won by staff union siblings employed by WGA East.
- Just cause provisions with progressive discipline and a stepped grievance process.
- The creation of a Labor-Management Committee to establish healthy worksite communication between staff and Guild leadership.
- Protection of bargaining unit positions from replacement by AI, temporary employees, and/or contractors.
“A ratification vote will be held in the coming days. The Bargaining Committee is enthusiastically recommending our members vote yes. Once ratified, the WGSU strike will end and Writers Guild staff will return to doing what we do best: defending the writers’ hard-fought gains and helping them build collective power,” the WGSU bargaining committee said in a statement on Friday.
For more, check out Deadline.
Lula Talks Chewing Out Trump on Iran
Yesterday, Payday Report covered the strange fanboy relationship between Trump and Lula. Indeed, before they met, Trump told Lula on a phone call, “I Love You.”
Today, Lula clarified that while they had a cordial and friendly relationship on a personal level, Lula was quite critical of Trump, but friendly and measured in his approach.
“Trump is not going to change his way of being because of a three-hour meeting with me. What I did want to tell him is what I think about the things that I believe can be done. I believe much more in dialogue than in war,” said Lula. “I believe that the invasion of Iran is going to cause more harm than he imagines. But there are many assumptions. He believes the war is already over. It’s not real, but he believes it. I’m not going to be playing with him over his view of the war,.”
Lula said that the meeting was positive and he received assurances from Trump that he wouldn’t interfere with Brazilian elections.
"I think he will conduct himself like a president of the United States, allowing the Brazilian people to decide their own destiny,” said Lula.
He also said that Trump told him that he had no plans to invade Cuba.
“I heard—and I hope the translation was correct—him say that he is not thinking about invading Cuba,” said Lula. “I think that is a significant sign. Cuba wants dialogue; it wants to find a solution to end a blockade that has prevented it from being a truly free country since 1959. It is the longest-lasting blockade in human history.”
Hunger Strike Rocks Moshannon & Local Community
Finally, immigrants detained at the Moshannon ICE facility in Clearfield, Pennsylvania (the largest detention facility in the Northeastern United States) have gone on a strike.
Last August, Payday reported on how protests from immigration rights activists from around the state mobilized a statewide debate. (See our story “Moshannon ICE Protest in Rural PA Coal Town Opens Eyes”.
Now, the hunger strike by immigrants detained at Moshannon has mobilized local residents even more. DocumentedNY has a look:
Tensions around conditions at Moshannon boiled into public view during a public meeting with Clearfield County commissioners on April 28.
One recently released detainee was patched into the hearing from someone’s phone and said that he experienced substandard food and a lack of medical care while detained at Moshannon. “I didn’t get the kind of treatment that I would consider as human,” he said, according to a livestream of the meeting.
“I would like to personally tell you guys that the people in Moshannon Detention Center are facing horrible conditions,” said one woman whose husband is a detainee at the center. She said she drove three hours to the meeting.
Other local residents said they could no longer tolerate an immigrant detention center that they considered inhumane, existing in their backyard. “I am ashamed that the reason the rest of the country is going to learn about Clearfield County, not because of our awe-inspiring natural beauty, but because of the allegations of human rights violations happening in our own backyard,” one longtime county resident said at the hearing while holding her baby.
Despite the public outcry, county officials stood by their assessment at the public meeting. “There was no hunger strike at the facility,” said commissioner Tim Winters. “We are in constant contact with facility management. Less than 10% of people missed one meal.” He said it was misinformation fed to people by some fearmongers’ personal agendas that created the false image.
For more, check out DocumentedNY.
Alright yinz, that’s all for today. Keep sending tips, complaints, comments, and cooking recipes to melk@paydareport.com
Mike Elk