The Writers Guild of America West and East have weighed in about the possibility of a studio mega-merger involving Warner Bros. Discovery.

The two branches of the writers union said in a statement on Thursday that a merger between WBD and any other major studio or streamer would be a disaster. The statement came after reports that the legacy studio has so far rebuffed at least three offers from David Ellison-led Paramount Global, not to mention rampant speculation about other Hollywood suitors.

Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth, the union said in a statement. Combining Warner Bros. with Paramount or another major studio or streamer would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition. The WGAW will work with regulators to block the merger. In recent years the WGA has advocated for antitrust and lawmaker intervention in entertainment on the basis that previous corporate marriages have harmed their members.

In 2021 the WGA West produced a report saying of previous mergers in media, such as the 2011 Comcast and NBCUniversal merger and the 2018 Disney and Fox merger, Merging companies promise benefits and downplay harms, but acquisitions repeatedly result in foreseeable anticompetitive outcomes that hurt consumers and workers.

Two years later, the union doubled down on that stance, calling for lawmaker and regulator action to protect competition in the entertainment industry. Deregulation and mergers have laid the groundwork for a future of increased market power that could soon leave just three companies controlling what content is made, what consumers can watch, and how they can watch it, the union wrote. Those three companies it believed would be in charge in the future? Disney, Amazon and Netflix.

On Oct. 21 the Warner Bros. Discovery board all but broadcast that the company (or, at least, parts of it) could be for sale when it released a statement describing its review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.So far, the company has received unsolicited interest from multiple parties, the statement added.