Charlton Heston: ‘Right-To-Work’ Icon?

Late American actor Charlton Heston liked his guns, but he apparently didn’t feel the same way about labor union dues.About two days after Heston passed away, the National Right To Work Legal Foundation, a conservative nonprofit that pursues legal cases against organized labor groups, posted a blog item about Heston’s support of right-to-work, or scenarios where unions cannot collectively bargain to organize workplaces where dues or agency fees are a condition of employment.

According to a column cited by the foundation:

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.

Bonus: a vintage you tube political ad with Heston speaking about his support of right-to-work.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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