Reagan: The Life by H. W. Brands Page B

represented unskilled workers, by contrast, often adopted the more radical position of challenging the existence or structure of capitalism and calling for workers’ governance or outrightsocialism. The American Federation of Labor, or AFL, was the prime exponent of the former, more conservative view; the Congressof Industrial Organizations (CIO) was its radical counterpart. Since the mid-1930s the two organizations had been locked in a bitter, sometimes violent dispute for control of organized labor in particular industries and for primacy in the labor movement as a whole.
    The struggle of labor ideologies spilled into Hollywood. The Screen Actors Guild represented actors, the elite of the Hollywood workforce. A new organization, theConference of Studio Unions (CSU), attempted to gain a foothold in the movie industry by organizing the behind-the-camera workforce. In doing so, it took on an existing union, theInternational Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). The CSU called a series of strikes designed to win attention for the union and demonstrate the muscle it could deliver on its members’ behalf. The strikes attracted attention, but it wasn’t all positive, for the IATSE matched the CSU muscle with muscle of its own. IATSE members challenged the CSU picket lines, leading to riots in which dozens were injured by rocks, knives, clubs, and fists.
    Reagan and the SAG board initially tried to avoid choosing sides between the CSU and the IATSE. Those comparatively few guild members with strong labor affinities were reluctant to cross any picket line, almost regardless of its origin. A somewhat larger group, uniformly liberal in political views, accepted the claims of the CSU and its leader,Herbert Sorrell, that the new union represented a democratic alternative to the corrupt, autocratic IATSE. But the largest contingent of actors saw little to choose between the rival backstage unions and were willing to be guided by their own self-interest, which was, chiefly, to keep working. Like Reagan, many of them had been in the military during the war and were eager to be back to their old jobs and their old pay scale.
    The fact that the IATSE disputed the authority of the CSU made crossing the picket lines easier than it might have been. Union practice mandated solidarity when workers were clearly arrayed against owners, but when workers were pitted against workers, in jurisdictional disputes such as the present case, other unions could exercise their discretion. The Screen Actors did just that, and they chose to cross the CSU picket lines.
    Yet crossing entailed risks. WhileWarner Brothers let the IATSE line crossers fend for themselves, it took greater care of the actors, in whom it had more invested. The studio would call the actors each morning and name an obscure off-studio site where they should meet. The sites changed daily to foil CSU spies. Buses would roll up to the site, and the actors would board; the buses, with guards, would then drive to Warnerand enter the lots. Reagan, who had finally found a part in a project called
Night unto Night
, recalled being advised to lie down on the floor as his bus crossed the picket line, lest he attract rocks or more lethal projectiles. “I couldn’t do that,” he explained. “So instead they made me sit by myself. They figured that if I was going to get it, nobody else would be hurt.” On one occasion he got to the rendezvous point just as his bus was going up in flames.
    Reagan at times found himself targeted more specifically. His anticommunist positionin HICCASP hadn’t gone unnoticed by the leaders of the CSU, who considered him a knee-jerk defender of the status quo and therefore a threat to their union. His decision to cross the picket line appeared to confirm the judgment. Reagan rejected the legitimacy of the union’s action. “The CSU strike was a phony,” he asserted afterward. “It wasn’t meant to improve the wages and working conditions of its