Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1506201
52 SAG-AFTRA | Summer 2023 | sagaftra.org A fter two and a half years — 947 days, to be exact — the strike was settled Nov. 4, 1967. In July, the National Labor Relations Board had ruled in AFTRA's favor that the owners of radio station KPOL were guilty of unfair labor practices and ordered it to bargain in good faith. As AFTRA L.A. Local Assistant Executive Secretary David O. Tytherleigh explained to members early in the strike, "Automation has arrived in this third-largest market, and loss of announcer jobs has resulted. KPOL is an example of the serious impact of automation on AFTRA members … Prior to our strike, it was admitted by KPOL management that automation on radio would make it possible to use some of the radio staff announcers in their new UHF Channel 22 television station [which debuted March 29, 1965]. Loss of jobs by automation results because otherwise there would have been additional employment on the TV stations … the direct loss is reflected in management's recently firing four of the AFTRA striking announcers because those jobs were no longer available because of automation. Prerecording of radio programs has reduced the KPOL radio staff of seven program announcers to three … "The strike resulted from management's ultimatum to remove the AFTRA union shop, AFTRA pension and welfare and 'right to respect picket lines' clauses, as well as the company's refusal to bargain in good faith. The company failed to disclose its plans to go automation until a few weeks prior to the strike ..." Several AFTRA members who worked for KPOL during the strike — including one who walked picket lines for nearly two weeks before returning to work there — were expelled on July 8, 1965. As AFTRA L.A. Local Executive Secretary Claude McCue wrote in a statement about strikes — as current today as it was in 1965 — "Although the sacrifices are significant, they are far less than those dictated by surrender. Capitulation to this brazenly reactionary management would return us to pre-AFTRA days of the '30s, when little stood in the way of impoverishment for actors and announcers except a nucleus of 'gutsy' performers who refused to knuckle under to the KPOLs of that day." No Quitters Here: The KPOL Strike of 1965–67 SAG-AFTRA ARCHIVES The AFTRA strike against broadcaster KPOL in Los Angeles began April 2, 1965, and continued until Nov. 4, 1967. In this June 1966 photo, sister unions rallied in solidarity. Actor Claude Akins, center, joined the picket at 5700 W. Sunset Blvd.