http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/arts/television/21soap.html?_r=1&oref=slogin"A handful of writers, for “All My Children,” “One Life to Live” and “General Hospital” on ABC and “The Young and the Restless” on CBS, have officially crossed picket lines to return to work in recent weeks, invoking a guild designation known as “financial core,” or financial need. "
"Consider that “The Young and the Restless,” which before the strike carried a writing staff of more than a dozen, now lists just three writers in its closing credits, each a guild member granted financial core status."
"Megan McTavish, a striking former head writer for four soaps — “General Hospital,” “Guiding Light,” “One Life to Live” and most recently “All My Children” — said in an interview she was particularly incensed by the recent return of James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten to “All My Children.” The two, who write as a pair and have been doing so for more than two decades, cited the financial strains of the strike in asking for a guild exception. "
Financial core status isn't something the union grants and it has nothing to do with financial need. It just means that an individual has elected to not be bound by union decisions, while still remaining technically a "member" and thus remaining eligible for union jobs. It's a legal right, and not one particularly popular with unions.
It means that a person has reduced his union membership to its "financial core"- he still pays dues and is covered by any collective bargaining agreements. The essential idea is that while it is legal for there to be "union" jobs, and therefore you can be forced to join a union to work in a certain area, a person can't be forced to actually listen to what the union says. It's concept that comes out a a Supreme Court case in the sixties.
Jay Leno is rumored to have threatened to go fi-core; hardly a case of financial hardship.
