Herschensohn Walkout Angers Unions

Hollywood union representatives have reacted strongly to KABC-TV commentator Bruce Herschensohn’s public resignation from an entertainment union last Thursday.

Herschensohn told The Times that he left the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to help show striking Writers Guild of America members “how you do it and that you can do it.” The strike enters its 19th week today.

Cheryl Rhoden, spokeswoman for the Writers Guild of America, West, said that “Mr. Herschensohn would resign from the human race if he could and, believe me, he wouldn’t be missed.”

The conservative commentator who lost a bid for the GOP Senate nomination in 1986 denied that he was urging WGA members to leave the union. “I have no right to extend an invitation” to striking writers to quit, he said.

However, on KABC radio’s “Ken & Bob Co.” Friday morning and in a TV commentary Wednesday, Herschensohn appeared to come close to doing so. In his 5 p.m. commentary Wednesday, Herschensohn said a June 29 Supreme Court decision “allows every Hollywood writer to go back to work who wants to go back to work--tomorrow. . . .”

Herschensohn apparently became the first in Hollywood to resign membership in a union in the wake of the high court decision. In the decision involving the Communications Workers of America, the court ruled 5-3 that non-union employees of private employers may not be forced to pay the equivalent of union dues if some of that money is used for activities not related to collective bargaining.

“The ruling, in conjunction with other rulings,” Herschensohn said Wednesday, “applies to any member of any union. . . . This is what you do: You simply resign from the union to which you belong and then pay only the portion of the dues required for collective bargaining, contract administration and grievance adjustment.”

Rhoden conceded that “rulings allowing members to resign have been on the books for years. All the recent decision did was clarify specific allocation of dues.” However, she pointed out that several weeks ago “2,500 striking writers paid for an ad that covered eight pages in the trades saying they had no intention of resigning.”

On “Ken & Bob,” Herschensohn charged that there was “a great deal of fear in this town” and “that fear is often encouraged through intimidation by the union” during a strike. He added that the high court decision “should erase all the fear--if you want to quit the Writers Guild or any other union and go back to work and pay reduced dues as a non-member.”

Rhoden scoffed at the idea that there was any climate of fear imposed by the Writers Guild. Members “have the full ability to criticize any and all rules they wish to change, and believe me they do,” she said.

Mark Farber, AFTRA executive secretary in Los Angeles, said that “although Mr. Herschensohn calls himself a political commentator, I think his resignation from AFTRA was hardly politically astute. Bruce currently works under an AFRTA contract at ABC but as of (Thursday) he has lost the right to be able to participate in the negotiations that affect his contract.”

“There is a continuing myth in this town,” Herschensohn said on the “Ken & Bob Co.” on Friday, “that if you work in the motion picture industry or television or radio that you must be a member of a union or a guild, a myth that you can’t even be hired unless you’re a member and certainly can’t quit.

“To prove that it’s OK and legitimate and also because I wanted to do it,” he added, “I quit AFTRA at noontime (Thursday) . . . I went on ‘financial core’ status so I’ll never have to strike or anything like that. I can now do what I want. I’m not a member.”

In a letter of resignation to AFTRA, Herschensohn wrote that “as a non-member, I then hereby declare myself to be protected by ‘financial core’ status” as defined by the court.

Farber noted that “Bruce made an extremely foolish decision and not even an original one. After all, William Buckley did it 15 years ago.”

Farber was referring to the long battle between the union and the conservative Buckley, who has hosted “Firing Line” for the last 22 seasons on PBS. In 1973, a U.S. District Court ruled that Buckley did not have to join AFTRA; in 1978 after a court appeal, AFTRA and Buckley discontinued the case and agreed that he did not have to join.

On Saturday, in his syndicated column, Buckley noted that he did the same thing as Herschensohn, adding: “This (Supreme Court decision) means that writers who, for whatever reason, choose to leave the Writers Guild, pay their professional dues and proceed to work on terms agreeable to them, are free to do so.”

Asked whether Herschensohn’s contract wouldn’t be covered by his agent’s negotiations, Farber said “agents in this town normally do not negotiate the minimum terms of things like arbitration, vacations, severance etc.”

Herschensohn said that didn’t bother him. “I’m not after this for what rights I have, but so that people know what they can do. . . . My bigger right is the right to choose.”

Rhoden added that Herschensohn “really is kidding himself if he thinks that the benefits he enjoys today as an employee were not won by the sacrifices and unity of a lot of people who came before him.”