Scribe tribe loses voice

Guild spokeswoman Rhoden axed amid turmoil

By DAVE MCNARY

Writers Guild of America West interim chief David Young has fired longtime guild spokeswoman Cheryl Rhoden from her post as assistant exec director, reflecting the org's ongoing turmoil.

Guild issued a brief comment about Rhoden's Wednesday afternoon termination, saying, "We wish Cheryl the best with her future endeavors."

Rhoden said in a statement, "I love writers. For going on 20 years, it has been my honor to work on their behalf. For myself, I'm going to take some time off to smell the horses."

She wouldn't comment further.

The sacking purportedly stemmed from disagreements between Young and Rhoden over strategies in the WGA West's push for organizing non-union writing work in areas such as reality TV.

Rhoden, who joined the WGAW staff in 1987, was a key strategist of the union's communication policies and supervised its publications, Web site, legislative programs, employment access and events. She was promoted from communications director to assistant exec director in 2001 by former exec director John McLean.

Rhoden was paid a salary of $166,934 for the fiscal year ended in March 2005, according to the most recent WGA West filing with the Dept. of Labor.

Move comes five months after the WGA West board stunned Hollywood by firing McLean and replacing him on an interim basis with Young, who had been director of organizing. McLean's ouster came a few days after an election victory by president Patric Verrone's slate, which had promised to take a far more aggressive course in bargaining and organizing.

Under Young's tenure, the WGA West has beefed up its organizing department to more than a dozen employees, and the guild has joined with SAG in calling for regulation and compensation of members for product placement on TV shows. The WGA and SAG recently staged a noisy demonstration to protest their exclusion from an ad industry confab on branding.

Rhoden's axing is the second of a top WGA exec by Young, who also fired deputy exec director Marshall Goldberg in November. Goldberg had been named general counsel in December 2003 and was promoted to the exec slot by McLean.

Rhoden was named as a defendant along with the WGA West and former president Victoria Riskin in a whistle-blower suit filed by former Web site editor Ross Johnson, who alleged his firing was in retaliation for his complaints about how the guild conducted the 2003 election.

Johnson alleged in the suit that Rhoden and Riskin sought to minimize voter turnout in an effort to favor incumbents. He also accused the guild of firing him on trumped-up charges in November 2003 to prevent him from testifying before an independent investigator appointed by the WGA West board to probe the election.

The Dept. of Labor found in 2004 that the WGA West had failed to properly qualify Riskin as a candidate for president in the 2003 election, which Riskin had won. That led to federal supervision of a special presidential election in 2004, held after Riskin resigned in the wake of a finding that she hadn't performed enough writing work to remain eligible for membership.

Attorneys for both sides agreed last year to drop Rhoden and Riskin from the suit. Rhoden remains a material witness and gave a deposition in December.

The WGA West asked last month for a summary judgment in the case in Los Angeles Superior Court.