R.I.P. Charlton Heston, Supporter of the Right to Work

Patrick Semmens — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:10:31 -0400

This weekend legendary actor Charlton Heston passed away.

Heston, former president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) union, was a rare union official who supported the Right to Work.

As recounted in this article, Heston also led a group of actors who started a campaign in the early 1980's to inform their fellow actors of the right to refrain from formal union membership as won in the National Right to Work Foundation's Abood case:

Mr. Heston also aroused the ire of union leaders in Hollywood when he and a group of conservative SAG actors -- who called themselves Actors Working for an Actors Guild -- led a movement to educate Hollywood union members to the fact that they had the right -- as upheld by the Supreme Court -- to opt out of their unions by declaring "financial core" status. In non-right-to-work states such as California, declaring financial core status gives workers in unionized industries the right to opt out of their union's politics while still requiring them to pay that portion of union dues that go directly towards collective bargaining, contract enforcement and contract administration.

Later, Heston himself resigned his formal SAG union membership in protest of a racist stance by SAG union brass:

Mr. Heston put his principles into action in 1991 when he declared financial core status in Actors Equity to protest the union's refusal to allow a white actor -- Jonathan Pryce -- to play the role of a Eurasian in "Miss Saigon" on Broadway. Mr. Heston, who had marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, called the union's action "obscenely racist." He even flew to London to support an actor's right to play any role without regard to race.

Charlton Heston was a champion of freedom who will be missed.

UPDATE: Here is video of Heston talking about the Right to Work principle from the Right to Work YouTube channel.