Just when you thought it was safe to be a member of the WGA again... Variety announces that the Guild, which will be cursed by a crippled Los Angeles for many years after last year's 100-day strike, is back on the defensive against AMPTP.

The studios have filed an unfair labor practices charge against the guild because it released the names of the 28 writers who filed for financial core during the strike. The AMPTP claims that this release from WGA presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship violated federal law. 

According to Variety, the WGA has responded to the charges with a claim that they are "baseless and represent an intrusion by the studios into an internal union matter." That sounds remarkably similar to "Mind your own beeswax; we've got a beef to settle with these strikebreakers!" 

Writers are within their legal right to go financial core, but AMPTP claims that the letter released by the WGA presidents encourages the guild's members to "shun" the financial core writers. Verrone and Winship wrote, "This handful of members who went financial core... must be held at arm's length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are -- strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk." 

Financial core writers are entitled to all the benefits of the WGA contract, insurance, and pension plans, but they cannot vote. This means that fi-core WGA members are eligible to work on WGA-supported projects (which, by the way, is the reason George Clooney decided to go financial core instead of breaking from the guild altogether over the "Leatherheads" credit disagreement). 

Though the letter has a bitter and accusatory "string-'em-up" tone in regards to financial core writers, the WGA is citing this requirement by federal labor law as the main reason why the AMPTP's charges are wrong. The studios, employers of the writers, felt that it was their responsibility to protect potential employees who had elected to go financial core. 

The AMPTP claimed that the WGA's public announcement of these 28 writers was wrong, but WGA says that going financial core is a "public act that carries impact on other WGA members." 

Investigation continues....