“I cannot work with strikebreakers,” O’Connor said.
While a show like All in the Family is timeless, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t without its dose of drama behind the scenes. Lead actor Carroll O’Connor and series creator Norman Lear were known to have their disagreements throughout the show’s run. These issues were typically regarding O’Connor’s salary, but in 1974, O’Connor went on strike from All in the Family for a totally different reason.
According to an interview with The Plain Dealer, O’Connor refused to come to the set of All in the Family for filming during a strike involving eighteen maintenance workers at CBS. In solidarity, O’Connor would not cross the picket line before they did.
“I’ve been a trade union man all my life,” he said. “I cannot work with strikebreakers. If I worked with management personnel, I’d be helping to break a strike line. But the point is that I cannot work — by the top comic actor on the top comic show on TV — in an atmosphere of labor strife.
Whether this put a dent in O’Connor and Lear’s already tense relationship is debatable; O’Connor seemed to insist that despite his refusal to cross the line, there was no need to fear for the fate of Archie Bunker.
“I have received no ultimatum from Lear, nor have my agents or anyone,” said O’Connor. “The only ultimatum I saw was in today’s trade. I’m so wary of news stories: there are only a handful of good reporters.”
“As soon as the strike is over, I’ll report back to work,” he said. “If they no longer need me, I’ll go home again.”
O’Connor also believed that Lear was inclined to believe the worst of him. “Norman’s tack, and you may quote me, seems always to be to question my sincerity and my goodwill and to imply that my actions are against the best interests of the cast and company of All in the Family,” he said. “He seems somehow determined to make me somehow unpopular with the public and the profession, and with the people I work with on a day-to-day basis.”
