Who needs a union? The owners of Jane Street Entertainment certainly don’t think their freelance writer-producers do. The New York-based company, which produces reality shows for Food Network, HBO, NBC, TLC, USA, Lifetime and HGTV, is urging its freelancers to vote no on union representation, arguing that the company can do a better job of safeguarding their interests than the WGA East can.

“If the WGA comes in, you will have to bend to the collective decision,” Jane Street owners Donna MacLetchie and Linda Lea said in a recent email to their freelancers. “It is in everyone’s best interest to keep small companies like Jane flexible because we can work with you directly. You aren’t part of a machine. You are part of a team” – a team that relies on the government to pay for its health care.

“I hope you’re well,” the owners said in the email to their freelancers – because if they’re not, they’ll have to pay for their own health care coverage. One of the main goals of the union is to require companies to contribute toward its workers’ health care, but Jane Street, which does not provide health benefits to its freelancers, says that they can get by just fine on Obamacare. “Considering that Obamacare has already changed the health benefit conversation, much of what they are promising won’t necessarily be needed,” the owners told their workers.

Related Story WGA East Heavyweights Sign Petition Urging ITV To Bargaining Table

Individuals who make more than $46,689 a year aren’t eligible for health benefits, though, so those freelancers would have to provide for their own coverage. A family of four with an income of less than $95,400 can receive government health care subsidies, so the company maintains that the government should take care of those workers’ health needs.

Jane Street also told its freelancers that if they vote the union in, they’ll have to bow to whatever salary demands the union dictates, regardless of merit. “If the WGA wins this election, someone is negotiating on your behalf,” they said. “As it is now, if you feel you need a raise, you come to us and we can negotiate together. If the WGA is elected, we can no longer make that decision on our own – we would have to negotiate all salaries with the WGA. The Union may not allow us to give you a raise unless we give it to everyone.”

“What they’re saying is not true,” said WGA East spokesman Jason Gordon. “We negotiate minimums” – meaning that the union only sets minimum rates, not maximums, and does not require that everyone to be paid the same.

“Jane Street will be the eighth nonfiction production company in New York whose freelance writer-producers will vote to form a union, and there will be many more to come,” the WGA said in a statement. “Freelancers in this relatively young industry are getting organized because they see this as a critical moment. … They see explosive growth and international multimillion-dollar deals happening all around them, but their rates are declining and their workloads are increasing.”

Urging their members to reject union membership, the owners told their freelancers: “You have the strongest voice when speaking for yourself.”

The union responded: “We agree. Freelance producers and APs are forming a union, not just at Jane but across this industry, because it is the only way we can speak up for ourselves in a way that the industry will hear us. With a union we have a seat at the table to negotiate over standards. Without a union we are letting the networks and production companies set standards for our work that suits their needs regardless of our own.”

The deadline for the return of ballots is March 19. Here’s the letter from Jane Street’s owners in its entirety: