Jurisdictional disputes in the motion-picture Industry : hearings before a special subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first-session, pursuant to H. Res. 111 (1948)

56 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES We have a picture of an old-fashioned house with an elevator structure that runs up and down, as some of you people have seen it, between the stairs. ''Who builds that?" "You build it." Then we would come to tables and chairs. He said, "Who builds them?" "They are props," I said, "we build them." They laid that one aside. There was a dispute. We went on for about 4 hours like that, with various pictures given. They were taken some place. And I thought we were going along and doing pretty good. I made a suggestion to Hutch ; I said, "We don't need the employer there" ; because at that time Mr. Nick Schenck was sitting there, Casey was sitting there, and Joe Vogel was there. So I thought we could get along better if the employer was not there. So I said, "Let's you and I come back with the committee tomorrow morning and sit down and see if we cannot adjust all the differences." He agreed. We came back the next morning and went over some more pictures and gave some more jurisdiction away, and gave so much jurisdiction away that the representative of local 44 was squirming in his chair — and you from Hollywood know that Gappy DuVal does not give anything away if he can help it. We continued to adjust, because I knew how serious this was, and I wanted the men back in the studios. I knew if they went back we would do the job much more easily. It went on for another 2 hours or so, and then Hutcheson made his mistake. He leaned back in the chair, and he said, "We want all woodwork, all woodworking machinery, and all work on wood and wood substitutes." It covers a lot of territory. If this microphone were to be built out of wood, it would mean that our property men who normally build this would not be permitted to do that. So I turned to Hutcheson and said, "Hutch, you get nothing." I said, "Now, if you want to settle along these lines that we have been talking about, I am willing to do that. I make this suggestion to you: We have agreed on certain jurisdiction which belongs to you and certain jurisdiction which belongs to the lATSB. I suggest that any jurisdiction that is in dispute, that we send it back to Hollywood and that we let the local unions out there appoint committees and let them sit down among themselves and try to adjust any jurisdicion which we have not been able to agree upon. If they cannot ad.iust it within 30 days, then you and I sit down and we agree to adjust it." He said, "No; I want all wood, wood substitutes, and all woodworking ma chinei'y." I thought that we had leaned back a long, long way in that meeting, and I did not want it to break up, so I said, "We agreed with the employer that if we could not come to an agreement that we call them back into the picture and see if they could help us out." So we asked Nick Schenck, Casey, and Vogel to come back in again and we told them what we had done. Mr. Schenck, who is a good friend of Hutcheson's, said, "Hutch, do you mean to tell me that you sit there like a man of iron and that you would not bend one way or the other? Do you realize that our studios out there are practically closed? Do you realize that we have enough pictures on the shelf to run the theaters of this country for pretty near a year? But there is one thing that disturbs me and it should disturb you. And," he said, "that is that we are only 6 weeks ahead of the boys on the other side. That every picture that we make is put on 10-mm. film and sent over to the boys on the other side." "I am not patriotic, or I am not a great patriot. I don't believe that I am worried about them. P>ut I have some people in there that I like very nmch. It is not business interests with nie," he said, "it is the same interest that you and every other American should have. Do you mean to tell me that you are going to let these studios stay closed and that those pictures will be stopped from going to the other side?" Hutcheson said, "I cannot do anything about it. I must take my jurisdiction and I must get what is mine." Schenck tui-nod to him and said, "Hutch, we have been friends for many years. I have done Inisiness with you for a long, long time. You have never come to me and a.sked for anything which I did not try to give you. And this is the first time tliat I have asked you for anything and you have turned me down." And he said, "It is not pleasing." He said, "Now we are going to run those studios, whether your men come back in there or !iot. Now, will you send your men back in?" And Hutch said, "No."