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)

352 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES Mr. Somerset, Yes. Mr. McCann. What was it? ]Mr. Somerset. Two. When the meeting convened, in the morning, every international was represented either by their international president or by a representative, every stndio, every international affected in the studios, except the carpenters who had no representation. When the meeting convened, immediately it was asked, ''Where are the carpenters' representatives?" Green, who was naturally chairman, informed the people pi-esent that Hutcheson had notified him that he was too busy to show up. Immediately the other international presidents said, "Well, we are pretty busj^, too. After all, Mr. Hutcheson was present at the executive council meeting that authorized you, Mr. Green, to send out these invitations to these meetings. After all, a great number of us have come quite a distance." And Green said, "Yes; Mr. Hutcheson was present." They said, "Well, we think that, the least to say, it is pretty bad manners of a gentleman who tells you to call this meeting and then does not show himself." There was a motion made that Mr. Green, during the recess, should contact or have his office contact Mr. Hutcheson and find out from him personally by word of mouth why he could not be present, and that if he could not be present, would he please send a representative. We went on with the business without him. We recessed for lunch. We irot back about 2 :oO. Mr. Green was asked if he had contacted Mr. Hutcheson. He said, he had been unable to at present. About 45 minutes later the telephone rang and Mr. Green went into the bocjth, which is in the executive board room there, and was in there about 10 minutes. He came out of the booth, and he said, "I have just caught Mr. Hutcheson. He was on his way from Miami to Indianapolis. He has just arrived and he says he is very sorry, but he is too busy to appear and he has so much work in the international that he is also sorry, but all his representatives are also busy and thc}^ will not be able to show, either." INIr. McCann. Of course, that meant that there could be no arbitration machinery set up because, by its provisions, everyone of the internationals involved had to agree to it. Mr. Somerset. Well, that is true. There was an attempt. Every other international president in the room said, "After all, we don't see why one man's absence should stop us from trying to do something.'^ That was the consensus of opinion. They felt it was a pretty bad thing if one man, by his deliberate absence, could stop something that was that important. So we tried to carry on. We did our best to carry on, and, in fact, there was a motion made at that meeting that a committee should be formed. I think it was Dan Tracy of the IBEW that made the motion — I am sure it was — that a subcommittee of this committee should be formed to try to work out arbitration machinery for the motion picture industry and it should be resubmitted to the full committee. That if the full committee agreed that that was the arbitration machinery, that they would accept, then, regardless of whether Mr. Hutcheson agreed to it, whether he showed up or whether he protested, that would be the machinery that would be taken up.