He was an actor, a writer, a director, elected to three consecutive terms as national president after serving three years as first vice president and was president of the New York Local from 1970 — 1972. He was a tireless worker for his New York constituents, while working in every area of AFTRA’s jurisdiction. In 1974, he created the AFTRA Women’s Committee. In 1975, after seven years of starring on Search for Tomorrow, Harvey was blindsided when he was written out of the show. As a gifted writer as well as actor, he penned a piece on the experience for TV Guide.
Harvey’s articulate grasp of the bigger picture marked his tenure as a leader of a national union. He believed “There is no greater enemy of the democratic idea than self-righteousness. It is all too easy and terribly destructive to fall into the trap of believing that your way is the only way or necessarily the best way to do anything."
Addressing the AFTRA leadership, including convention delegates, for the last time as president at the 1976 national convention in Minneapolis, he advised: “Let us understand and urge our members to understand that all we have to compel justice — if reason fails — is the work we can refuse to do. Since before they stopped beating people on picket lines (or have they?), strike action has been the honorable last resort of the free American working man and woman. If that were not so, I don’t think we would be meeting in this room as AFTRA today. For it is that kind of action, or the demonstrated determination to take such action, that gave birth to unions such as ours in the first place ... let us not be afraid ... Let us be secure in the knowledge that we ask not for any special privilege, but for a fair shake. Let us insist that justice, finally, be done.”
On June 6, 1979, just three years after completing his presidency, Ken Harvey died of cancer at age 61. His fellow New York members so treasured his contributions to their betterment that they established the Kenneth Harvey Award, highest honor of the AFTRA New York Local. His widow, Rita Morley, a board member of both Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA, authored a history of the union’s early years: Those Wonderful, Terrible Years: the Story of George Heller and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, published in 1996.