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)

MOTIOX-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES 627 Mr. Mannix. Well, let me try to answer that question in a rather long, long explanation. I have got to start away back to answer the question. In early September the Conference of Studio Unions, Mr. Cambiano, of the carpenters, and Mr. Skelton, and Mr. Sorrell, and a group of others, asked for a meeting with the labor committee. We met one afternoon and we were told then that the next morning at 6 o'clock these sets would be declared hot. So they left and the next morning certain carpenters refused to do certain assigned work to them. A number of the carpenters— a good many of them during the next 5 or 6 or 8 days, I don't recall — stayed on tile job doing their work. It came about that the dispute came up over the question of trim being put on sets. That was carpenters' work and the erection was the set erectors'. While we were building the sets in the mills, it had no effect whatsoever on the jurisdictional dispute, because the carpenters were doing the work they were supposed to do in their minds, and the set erectors were supposed to do theirs under the terms of the directive. So each studio had a little different situation to contend with. For instance, our studio had a larger mill space than some other studio. We could afford to go on and build — keep the carpenters employed for a long period. But what happened as time went on, the carpenters in the mill, when they would build a set and we put it on the stage for erection of certain work to be done, and trim to be put on by the other people at t]ii< time, they said they would not vrork in the raill. So we were faced with a strangulation of work there. We had a certain amount of work we could carry on with, but there was a limit to it, a sort of reserve we had. As we used up the sets in the pictures and there were no new ones to be built, we had to demand the work be done. We met, the labor committee met, and we met during that week, discussing what was going on in the studios. Mr. McCann". When did that labor committee meet? Mr. Mannix. Sometime between the 1st of September — what is the date? — the 13th of September; is that the established date the carpenters came and gave the ultimatum ? I don't want to mention the 7th or 12th or 13th, and then sa}' it is somewhere in this period. Mr. McCann. As I understand it, the ultimatum was given to you on the 11th day of September. Mr. Mannix. The 11th day of September. And we met for the next week, I should say, most every day, our committee, in checking up what was going on in the studios. Mr. McCann. You mean, now, the labor committee of the majors? Mr. Mannix. The labor committee of the majors. We met and discussed the situation. When Ave found it was getting now to where you had to close down, make a decision or close down, we assigned the carpenters as the jobs came up, and we assigned them to do the work. Now, every man who was assigned and refused to do it, we asked him to leave the premises for refusing to carry on the assignment assigned to him. Eventually what happened, every man that was a member of the carpenters union was assigned a job. Up to that time all carpenter work — and there was a closed shop with carpenters — a closed shop