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)

410 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES various lATSE unions, therefore lie had decided that this kind of work did not belong to the grips anyway, and therefore he had assigned it to these set erectors. Now, to me that seemed a perfectly phony maneuver. If the set erectors had been an old union, it would have been understandable, but it seemed to me obvious that Mr. Walsh had established a phony union, and a union which never had existed before, for the precise purpose of frustrating the purpose of this agreement between the grips and carpenters, creating an issue and a controversy that never would have existed in Hollywood. That is why the set erectors union was created, so that Mr, Walsh could say that here is something the grips and carpenters satisfactorily determined, but here is another union I have set up and they can claim this work, and we will get the dispute we have been wanting all along. That is the way it still appears to me. Again, as Mr. George Murphy remarked here the other day, Mr. Murphy asked me if it seemed to me if in view of this ambiguity of meaning of the December directive, the only people, as Mr. Murphy stated, who authoritatively could say what they meant by the expressions that they used were the people who had written that directive. I say that is a perfectly sound position. I agree with that and I have always agreed with it. That is why the question was resolved by the three men, they resolved it in the August clarification. They said what it meant, and I did not think and still do not think that it is within the province of anybody else to still argue about what those three men meant. They said in their clarification what they meant. They said on the stand Avhat they meant, regardless of any other amount of confusion which might have existed about it. It was their right to say what they meant. It was not Mr. Hutcheson's right or the producers' right, it was a right simply within the power only of the three who wrote the directive to say what it meant. They said what it meant in August, and they said what it meant on this stand, saying exactly the same thing on the stand that they said in August. And this seems to me very important, it still seems very important. We have had a lot of discussion in this hearing about whether or not the powers of this committee ceased after 30 days. I think that is a very important point. I don't see how this has any bearing on this kind of a situation, because this is not a situation which is going to be resolved on the basis of mere legalisms. The entire authority that those three men had and under which they acted was by reason of the fact that they are appointed hy the highest authority of the A. F. of L., namely, the supreme executive council of the A. F. of L. The A. F. of L. executive council which conferred upon this committee the authority to render a decision in December of 1945, by token of the same authority, could at any time it chose appoint this committee or any other committee, an entirely new committee if it wanted, to come into the jurisdictional dispute arising out of the previous dispute. It had the same authority to recreate that committee or create a new committee and confer upon it the same authority to resolve that dispute. Supposing the dispute had arisen over the 1921 agreement being in force and effect, and I don't think anything has been heard of that 1921 agreement to this time. We have onlj^ heard of the 1926 agreement that was signed.