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)

MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES 1249 Mv. SoREELL. We have obtained justice a number of times. I could give you a number of cases where we have obtained justice, but I know Mv. Kearns does not want to drag the hearing out like that. But the carpenters on the job were incensed, in January, when the directives came out and caused the producers to hire people who had been cracking their picket line. I am sure that was very bad labor relations on the producers' part, because it took many men to do the same amount of work that the men did before because the men who had been on the picket lines did not like to rub shoulders with these fellows who had fought them. They did not consider them—well, maybe we shall say; we hear about "racial prejudice; we hear about prejudice against minority groups and we hear about prejudice of all kinds. This was a case of union prejudice. Mv. Oavexs. But they were all union people, were they not? Mr. SoKRELL. Well, Mr. Owens, your opinion of union people, I can see, is not quite like mine. My opinion of a union man is a man who has a union principle. Your opinion of a union man is a man who obtains a union card. They did have union cards. They got union cards. Mr. Oa\t:xs. I am from Chicago. I notice how they get the cards quite frequently. ' Mr. SoRRELL. I admit the men who got those cards did not have to stand any examinations; they did not have to be journeymen; they did not have to be efficient. All they had to have was a body to place in a studio during the strike. The men they replaced were men the producer had hired over many years, men who had maintained themselves on the job by being a better mechanic than the average and a better working man. Mr. Omt:xs. Are you telling me now the producers kept a poorer worker deliberately ? Mr. SoRRELL. I don't say they kept the poorer worker deliberately. They kept enough of the poorer workers to discourage the good workers and "make them unhappy. I am saying any producer will tell you that his costs went up at that time, not because of the raise in wages, but because of less efficiency of the men. Now, the most popular thing Mr. Hutcheson ever did among the rank-and-file union members who had been on strike was to tell the producers, "You now have a clarification of the directive and we ex- pect you to put it into effect the same as you did the directive." Mr. Owens. You say that is the most courageous thing he did? ]\Ir. SoRRELL. No; i did not say that. I said, the thing that ap- 23ealed to the workers more than anything else was when Hutcheson came out and said, "Here is the clarification, live up to it." ]\fr. OwEXS. Whether he had a right to do it or not? IVIi-. SoRRELL. He had a right to do it. j\Ir. OwEXS. I disagree with you on that. I do not think he had any right to issue any clarification of a directive of a board of arbitration that liad made its final decision. INFr. SoRRELL. Well, 'Mv. Owens, I will not say that you are right, or that I am right, or that you are wrong and I am wrong, but there was a period of almost a month when that letter was sent to Eric John- ston and to the producers, during which it was brought up in every