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)

408 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES it meant, and I believe Mr. Kahane and Mr. Mannix have said the same thing, it seemed to me all along if admittedly the words of the directive were too ambiguous, when it was impossible to know what it meant, it was entirely inequitable, unjust to insist then upon a single interpretation to upset the work divisions that had been observed for 25 years, to deprive the carpenters of their work. If the meaning had been crystal clear, there could not have been any question about those practices. When the meaning is unclear, ambiguous, and nobody can understand what it means, then it seems to me the equitable thing, if they are interested in securing peaceful relations in Hollywood, the thing that anybody who desired peace in Hollywood would have done, would have been to suspend judgment and let the actual divisions which had continued for 25 years continue. However, Mr. Walsh of the lATSE ceased this admitted ambiguity. I doubt very much that even at this moment I can define erection in a way that would be satisfactory to everybody and that would cover all of the conditions. Mr. Reagan was asked to do that on the stand yesterday and he couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I doubt that Mr. Luddy could do it. Consequently that phrase is manifestly ambiguous and therefore it was an injustice to take advantage of it to deprive the carpenters of work they had been doing actually for 25 years, by the interpretation placed upon this ambiguous phrase. In the light of what Mr. Brewer had said to me, it seemed to me that the reason this was done was a simple manifestation of the desire of the lATSE to provoke the issue in Hollywood which would result in the establishing of this war that Mr. JBrewer had indicated the lATSE had sworn to carry out against the Conference of Studio Unions. This was the action, this was what led to, was the spark that set off the explosion, the explosion which Mr. Brewer made it rather clear to me he desired in Hollywood, the only way he could destroy the Conference of Studio Unions, it seemed to me, was precisely by provoking this kind of a situation, and the situation was successfully provoked. There was further the problem of this division that was raised by what happened with regard to the grip's agreement that has been referred to many times in this hearing, the agreement that was reached between the grips local of the lATSE and the carpenters. Before 1945, if there had been any dispute involving the precise amount of work which is to be divided by this division, that dispute, unless I am very much mistaken — I might possibly be mistaken on this and I am subject to correction, but now my belief is that that dispute would have been between the carpenters and the grips. The grips were the people who in the old days, of the stage erected scenery and so on. Now under the terms of the Cincinnati agreement the grips and the carpenters got together in Hollywood, and as has been testified to in this hearing, reached an understanding and agreement that was satisfactory to both. Counsel for the committee read part of that agreement in evidence yesterday. I think the other part of the agreement that was not read is of very great importance, because if the agreement is read in full I think it will indicate that the grips recognized the jurisdiction of the carpenters over all of the work — over those lines of work that the carpenters had claimed in this whole dispute,