Radio: Victory for TvA

Even stubborn Earle C. Anthony finally agreed to sit down with the union negotiators, but early this week the pickets were still parading in front of his station KFI-TV. The owners of Los Angeles’ other six TV stations had already peacefully squiggled their signatures on contracts certifying Television Authority as their performers’ sole union representative. For George Heller, 45-year-old executive secretary of TvA* the contracts marked the end of a rugged six-month organizing campaign.

By last week the A.F. of L.’s new union had triumphed over all four TV networks and every one of the big TV production centers: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. It had also finally brought under one roof five competing performer unions: Actors’ Equity, Chorus Equity, American Federation of Radio Artists, American Guild of Musical Artists, American Guild of Variety Artists.† Soon, Heller and TvA expect to mop up the eighty-odd local TV stations scattered across the U.S. Says Heller: “We’re a powerful group, there’s no question of that.”

Remotes & Repeats. Heller could point to some fat facts & figures to justify his claim. TvA has already proved powerful enough to extract an estimated $8,000,000 in additional yearly wages from the networks. A closely-printed, 16-page code goes exhaustively into conditions of work, hours of rehearsal, rates of pay ($170 minimum for an hour-long show plus 22 hours of rehearsal), and such esoteric specialties as doubling, warmups, remotes, live repeats and after-shows. Heller is particularly proud of a clause which guarantees all performers their full original fee if a kinescope of a show is ever re-used on the air.

He defends his high pay scale because “this isn’t radio, where someone puts a script in your hand a few hours before air time.” On television, says Heller, “a performer’s life is decapitated. Most of them can’t do more than one show a week, because of rehearsal conflicts. We’ve set a salary bottom below which no one can go.”

You Sit & Sit. Although TV executives admit that ex-Actor Heller (a minor part in You Can’t Take It With You) won his union “a very tough contract,” they argue that “it’s possible to get a deal that’s too good.” Their point: the only way, now, to save money on a show is to cut down on the number of performers, especially dancers and choruses.

But most TvA members seem cheerfully willing to take their chances. Said one dancer: “Before the contract, you’d just sit and sit at rehearsals waiting for them to call you. Now that they have to pay for rehearsals, they really map out a show. You have to be on time, they have to be on time, and, best of all, you get out on time.”

* The “v” is lower-cased by the union in deference to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

† Still outside the fold, and appealing their case to the National Labor Relations Board: the powerful Screen Actors’ Guild and Screen Extras’ Guild, who insist that they should have jurisdiction over factors in movies made especially for TV.