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)

MOTION'-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES 261 I then asked him how he had come, he and his colleagues, to write the famous directive, and what he meant by it, and these are almost his exact words. I made a specific effort to recall them. He said: "This is how we wrote the December decision: We Avent out to Hollywood and made a thorough investigation, at least as thorough an investigation as the time allotted to us permitted. We were given 30 days to make the decision. Within the limits of that time we investigated that situation. We looked into the history of that situation. We wrote the decision on the basis of that history; that is, on the history of the labor unions involved. "The exact phrasing of my question to Mr. Birthright was : "Wliat did the committee mean by the December directive ^ Mr. Birthright's statement to me makes it perfectly clear what the committe meant by the December directive. He and his colleagues meant that that the building of sets belonged to the carpenters, the painting of sets belonged to the painters, the putting up and taking down of sets belonged to the lATSE. What has confused the question is the fact that Mr. Birthright — and I assume the same can be said for his colleagues — has evidently never understood the precise nature of the dispute that arose out here over his jurisdictional award. This was evident in my talk with him. After having explained the meaning of the December directive in a fashion that fully substantiated the claims of the carpenters and invalidated the claims of the lATSE, he immediately went on to complain about the carpenters as though they were responsible for the trouble. "We wrote the decision on the basis of that history. We looked into the history of these unions and wrote our decision upon the basis of it," he had said, "Now, historically, what was the lATSE?" That was the exact phrasing of Birthright's question. He said, "It was a stagehands' union. In the days before the motion picture, shows traveled from city to city, the scenery traveled with the show. It was taken off the train, transported to the theater, and handed over to the stagehands. The stagehands didn't build that scenery ; they didn't paint the scenery. Carpenters built it ; painters painted it. The stagehands simply took it, already built and painted, and put it up in the theater. And when the show was over, they took it down again. "Now, when the motion pictures come along, the job of the stagehands remained essentially the same. Carpenters built the scenery. Painters painted it. Stagehands put it up and took it down. It was upon this basis that we wrote our December award," Mr. Birthright said. I should like Mr. Birthright, if he is here, to state whether or not that is a correct version of what he told me within the past 4 weeks. Now, let me go on from there. After having made this statement — and I want to say, in my opinion, this is what has confused the question as far as Mr. Birthright is concerned. I think the remarks he made after that indicated that Mr. Birthright has never been correctly informed as to the precise nature of the dispute that has arisen over this December award, al