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)

150 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES Mr. McCann". Did these jurisdictional battles create any additional cost to you ? Mr. Hopkins. Substantially. Mr. McCann. Tell us about that. Mr. HorKiNS. You asked me, first, about tlie first strike. I suggested that during the first several weeks of the first strike it was very costly. It was quite difficult to obtain experienced men and train them — a program of trying to develop men, inexperienced people, on how to do the job. It was very, very costly and required perhaps twice as long in tlie first several weeks to get the sets built and constructed. You had to time your picture differently. You had to readjust your people and readjust your sets, in order to have your sets completed. This strike, I believe, lasted 8 or 9 months, and as time went on obviously the people began to improve in tlieir ability and the situation began to gradually improve. From my opinion it was gradually improved to the extent we were operating fairly satisf actorilj^ — at least, we were getting all of our pictures made — until the settlement which came about on October 31, 1946. Mr. McCann. Now, when that settlement took place, what happened then ? Mr. Hopkins. The following day, as I recall, under the Cincinnati agreement, every single person, whether he be a department head or foreman, or on down the line, and regardless of any union or if he belonged to the CSU, returned to his job unless he happened to be ill or out of town. In those cases we leaned over backward and brought them back to work as soon as they were able — they were to come to work if it was within a reasonable period of time. We had a couple of men in Mexico and some that were ill ; they came back later. • Mr. McCann. Will you explain to the chairman what you told me out in the hall with respect to the building of a ship or the building of some particular house, and the problems you had between the lATSE and the carpenters on that ? Mr. Hopkins. I am afraid j^ou have the wrong man, Mr. McCann. I didn't mention anytliing to you in the hall about a ship. Mr. McCann. What was it you were talking to me about? Mr. Hopkins. I was laughing about a situation that arose recently in regard to a jurisdictional problem. It struck me as being humorous, that is why I referred to tliat one case, out of perhaps several hundred, which have been more serious. It struck me as bein^ a little bit humorous recently when we had a location about 30 miles from Hollywood, and we had about 25 holes that had to be dug in the ground about 2 feet deep and perhaps 8 inches in diameter. Mr. McCann. How much in diameter? Mr. Hopkins. About 8 inches, maybe 10. The idea was to dig the holes, to put some fence posts in them, to build a fence. They got out there and it seemed as though they had to dig 3 or 4 more holes. They had about 25 to put the posts in, but they decided to dig 4 or 5 more holes to put some bushes in. Well, we got that job done. The next day I had a telephone call and I was pretty badly ribbed because we didn't send a truck or bus out there with two men from another labor organization to dig the other three holes. Mr. McCann. You mean you had two different common laborers?