A Drama Worthy of ‘Murphy Brown’

Maybe Vice President Dan Quayle is finally getting a last laugh on the producers of that Quayle-bashing TV character Murphy Brown. He was critical of them as liberal “Hollywood elitists,” and now many liberals are taking them on.

Dianne English, the outspoken, liberal co-producer of “Murphy Brown,” and her husband, Joel Shukovsky, are in trouble with many of their liberal friends in and out of the labor movement.

The wealthy couple is embroiled in what amounts to an ugly union-busting battle against an old-line union that represents most of the craft workers in the film industry. They are not minimum-wage workers, but they are among the lowest-paid employees in the industry.

The fight began in September when English and Shukovsky said they just couldn’t afford the health and pension benefits a union contract would require for about 30 camera operators, makeup artists, sound technicians and other craft workers on the couple’s popular new series, “Love and War.”

Their cry of poverty is hard to understand. CBS reportedly agreed to pay the rich couple well for each episode of “Love and War.” If they go over budget, the network is said to be ready to treat the extra costs as a loan to be repaid if the series makes money. If not, industry sources say, CBS is expected to simply forgive the loan.

English and Shukovsky signed union contracts for well-paid, hard-to-replace actors, writers and directors. But they refused to pay what they called the “bloated” standard industry contract covering craft workers’ health and pension costs. No compromise offer suited them.

There was a brief strike, so English and Shukovsky hired a non-union crew to replace members of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, who helped them make a successful pilot film of the series.

It was yet another use of a rotten legal technicality. Non-government workers in our free country cannot be legally fired for striking, but they can be permanently replaced--as if there is a difference.

Most union leaders were naturally infuriated by the union-busting action, but others outside the labor movement were offended too.

The liberal Americans for Democratic Action had planned to give English its Eleanor Roosevelt Award soon for her sympathetic portrayal of women on television.

But an ADA spokesman told me last week that “as supporters of working men and women and their unions, we cannot give an award to someone involved in a dispute like this against a legitimate union.”

English did get an award recently from another liberal organization, the American Civil Liberties Union. She didn’t go to the award ceremonies because, she said, she was upset about IATSE’s plan to picket the fund-raising affair.

Ramona Ripston, ACLU executive director, said “I have always been a friend of labor and work cooperatively with them, but that should be a two-way street. We didn’t want our annual fund-raising event to be disrupted by a labor dispute we didn’t even know existed until after we decided to make the award.”

Adding to the irony of liberals versus liberals is the possibility that the ACLU might yet intervene in a legal action against the ACLU’s award winner because union workers have now filed unfair labor practice charges against English and her husband.

The charges are now pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

Lewis Maltby, coordinator of the national ACLU task force on workplace civil liberties, said the organization would, if asked, look into the “union busting” charge. “Then, if our participation in the case is appropriate, we would join the union in its action because we do not want to see workers abused,” Maltby said.

More and more companies across the nation, including many in the film industry, are trying with some considerable success to become, or remain, “union-free.”

But it is almost unheard of for producers of a major television series made in the film capital of the world not to use unionized craft workers.

If the liberal English and Shukovsky succeed, they might set a pattern for the other liberal producers Quayle says abound in Hollywood. Even more likely, a “liberal’s” win against the craft union might encourage moderate and conservative producers, who may have been reluctant to declare war on well-established unions. That would probably please Quayle. Ex-President Reagan started the trend when he permanently replaced striking air traffic controllers. He, President George Bush and Quayle have been battling unions ever since.

Unfortunately, English and Shukovsky seem ready to join that battle, at least against the more vulnerable, lower-paid workers in the film industry.