LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Hollywood's&nbsp;striking&nbsp;Writers&nbsp;Guild of America (WGA)&nbsp;and&nbsp;SAG-AFTRA&nbsp;actors' union filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Comcast's&nbsp;NBCUniversal&nbsp;on Tuesday, accusing the company of&nbsp;blocking&nbsp;a&nbsp;picket&nbsp;area.
The unions said&nbsp;NBCUniversal&nbsp;infringed its freedom to&nbsp;picket&nbsp;and&nbsp;endangered its members by obstructing a public sidewalk next to the company's studio lot in California with an ongoing construction project.
The WGA's complaint said&nbsp;NBCUniversal&nbsp;"forced&nbsp;picketers to patrol in busy streets with significant car traffic where two&nbsp;picketers have already been struck by a car."
SAG-AFTRA said members had been forced "to&nbsp;picket&nbsp;at the unsafe crowded location, exacerbating the dire public safety situation to interfere with&nbsp;striking&nbsp;members' right to engage in the protected, concerted activity of&nbsp;picketing&nbsp;and&nbsp;patrolling outside the employer's premises during a lawful strike."
Hollywood&nbsp;actors&nbsp;joined film&nbsp;and&nbsp;television&nbsp;writers&nbsp;on&nbsp;picket&nbsp;lines for the first time in 63 years last week as they demanded higher streaming-era pay&nbsp;and&nbsp;curbs on the use of artificial intelligence.
NBCUniversal&nbsp;said it supported the unions' rights to demonstrate safely, adding it understood the timing of its multi-year construction project had created challenges for demonstrators&nbsp;and&nbsp;it was working with public agencies to increase access.
"We strongly believe that the company has fulfilled our legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)&nbsp;and&nbsp;we will cooperate with respect to any inquiries by the National Labor Relations Board on this issue," an&nbsp;NBCUniversal&nbsp;spokesperson said.
Both unions asked the NLRB to order&nbsp;NBCUniversal&nbsp;to remedy the situation.
(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Baranjot Kaur&nbsp;and&nbsp;Juby Babu in Bengaluru&nbsp;and&nbsp;Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Shubhendu Deshmukh; Editing by Leslie Adler&nbsp;and&nbsp;Jamie Freed)

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Striking writers and actors accuse NBCUniversal of blocking picket area