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68 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES
Mr. Casey. The original charter. The charter, of course, was formed and granted "udien studios wei-e not in existence. It was first granted fur theaters.
Mr. McCann. The record seems to indicate that a local No. 44, as I recall it, was created and granted a charter by the American Federation of Labor to do some of the work.
Mr. Casey. You are mistaken, Mr. McCann. It was not. It was granted by the lATSE. If I can be allowed, I will try to clear that picture up for you.
Mr. McCann. I wish you would, sir.
Mr. Casey. You would like the whole story of this thing, wouldn't you?
Mr. INIcCann. Be delighted.
Mr. IOdarns. Mr. Counsel, let us stand adjourned until 2 p. m. this afternoon.
(At 11 : 52 a. m., a recess was taken until 2 p. m. of the same day.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
Mr. Kearns. The hearing will come to order.
TESTIMONY OF PAT CASEY— Continued
Mr. McCann. Mr. Casey, I believe you were just srartino at the noon recess to tell us the story of the strife that has existed for several years in Hollywood. Will you proceed in your own way ?
Mr. Casey. In 1926 the motion-picture industry, which had been making most of their ])roduct in New York and its vicinity, moved to California. At that time they got together with soni',^ international presidents, namely, the musicians' union, carpenters' union, electricians^ union, and the lATSE. They drew up what is known in our business as the basic agreement.
Tliat agreement, every attorney probably will tell you. isn't worth the paper it is written, on, and probably legally it isn't. But for a great number of years everybody lived up to that agreement. My own opinion is the reason they lived up to the agreement is that anyone on either side had a perfect right to pull out from under the agreement by just sending a telegram. The fact they had that right is what I think kept them in there.
In tlie oi'iginal, the painters Mere in. too. Subsequeiitly. the teamsters became part of it, and then after that, the laborers became part of that agreement.
We met every 1 or 2 years, as the occasion required, and we went over the different problems tliat confronted us. We settled wages and conditions, and I don't ivmember of any meeting that we ever had with the basic agreement that has lasted over 2 days. Most of them lasted 1 day.
There never was any written agreements, except the original agreement. After we had settled our matters, 1 tlieii got together with tlie representatives of the basic-agreement ]:)eople, on the union side, and we drafted a letter and sent the letter out, as to what ilie conditions and salaries were to be.
That went along and everybody seemed to be happy — everybody Avorking in the studios seemed to think they had a prettv good proposition. All of this time we had an open shop in the studios.