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)

386 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES be quite fair to expect somebody to summarize the arguments pro and con. I think they have been well summarized all through these hearings right here this afternoon, and counsel of the committee has brought out all of the various conflicting jurisdictional claims in Hollywood and what we are witnessing here, with little exception, what we are witnessing here these last 3 days was in the executive council meeting. Each and every executive council meeting as long — had long-drawnout discussions on property rights, oi rather, propertymen, and what is a prop. I recall that I advertently referred to a prop in one of those executive council meetings as being a microphone, and the electrical worker said, "Oh, no ; that is mine." And then there were glasses on the table, that is a prop, and the glass blower would probably say that is his; I don't know. And so it is pretty difficult, and we have gone all over this whole thing for 3 days now, Mr. Chairman, and that is a very broad question. Mr. McCann. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that that question is not unreasonable, and is within the capacity of one to recall the arguments that were made in favor of changing it. Now, I am not going to urge it; its is Mr. Price's question, but I submit it is not an unreasonable question. Mr. Kearns. I think it is immaterial at the moment. Mr. McCaxn. All right. Is this another of yours, Mr. Price? Mr. Price. It is. ]\Ir. McCankt. Mr. Doherty, you have repeatedly testified that you did not intend by your Decembei award to alter any jurisdiction. You also testified on Monday afternoon that you intended by that award to adopt the 1926 agreement, but that you later learned that the 1926 agreement had not theretofore been placed in effect, but that such fact did not alter your opinion that it should be adopted. It occurs to me that if the 1926 agreement was not in operation in any particular and it were put in operation in that particular, the result would inevitably be to change the allocation of some jobs. Will you explain this apparent contradiction? Mr. Doherty. I am glad, happy in that word "a]:)parent contradiction." Insofar as I am concerned, and I am confident I speak for the other members of the committee, the 1926 agreement looked good to us at the time that we handed down the decision, and it still looks good. However, we learned later that it had lieen repudiated — that at least the officers of the carpenters' union had been repudiated for having signed such an agreement, the local officers — I read their names the other day here — and I frankly admitted that pleasure that we did have at the knowledge that there was such an incident had occurred or happened, and probably if we had the job to do over again and we were fortified with the advance knowledge, we may have approached the subject from a different angle, but as it now stands, we have handed down the decision, and again I say we do not want to cross a "t" or dot an "i." We wanted to make the thing final, definite, and binding on all parties concerned. Mr. McCann. I have other questions for Mr. Knight. You testified yesterday, referring to the meeting with Mr. Reagan in October 1946, "I think we proceeded on the assumption most of