DOJ Must Stop Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

Leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is calling on the Department of Justice to block the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. merger unless worker protections are put in place.

Union leaders announced on Thursday that they had filed a report outlining key concerns about the $111 billion mega-transaction with the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and that they are pushing for the transaction to be blocked unless their concerns are addressed.

The union’s input is especially consequential because Teamster general president Sean O’Brien is a labor ally of President Donald Trump and previously played a role in the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor secretary. Whether O’Brien’s opposition could sway Trump, who has his own relationship with Paramount CEO David Ellison and his billionaire father, Larry Ellison, is another question.

“This merger threatens the livelihoods of the very workers who built these studios into industry giants,” O’Brien said in a statement. “We’ve seen what happens when corporations consolidate power: jobs disappear, production leaves American communities, and workers pay the price. The DOJ has a responsibility to stop deals that eliminate competition and harm working families. Unless Paramount and Warner Bros. can guarantee enforceable protections for domestic production and labor standards, this merger can’t be allowed to move forward.”

Though they are perhaps best known for their trucker members, the Teamsters represent some 15,000 entertainment workers across the country, from drivers to animal wranglers to casting directors to locations professionals.

Paramount executives have sought to tamp down on widespread projection that their megamerger with Warner Bros. will result in widespread layoffs and a reduction in production — the latter of which would deeply impact Teamsters members — but many in Hollywood aren’t buying it. Lindsay Dougherty, the head of the Teamsters’ motion picture division, called the transaction “the last thing the industry needs.”

Dougherty added, “This story is not new. Greed-fueled consolidation of corporate power is a direct threat to good union jobs and the livelihood of our members. We will not stand by while corporate executives try to consolidate power even further at the expense of the people who make every movie, every show, and every streaming platform possible.”

The Teamsters join the Writers Guild of America in vociferously opposing the deal. “We have every reason to believe this merger would have a detrimental effect on writers and naturally everyone in the industry,” union president Michele Mulroney told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview.

Other major industry unions have yet to go public with their positions since Paramount outbid Netflix for the historic studio in late February. Some labor leaders were privately rooting for Paramount as the lesser of two evils, concerned about the impact that Netflix, historically not a friend to movie theaters, would have on the theatrical ecosystem.

This isn’t the first time that O’Brien and Dougherty have butted heads with Ellison. In 2025, before the Paramount-Skydance merger was finalized, the union leaders met with Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr to express concerns about the merger’s impact on labor. The union said it had previously met with executives for Ellison’s Skydance twice but received no commitments in return.