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)

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1364 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES Mr. Owens. You were away just before this, Mr. Chairman, when I brought out that in 1937 the very same thing was done as was done in '45. The men were accepted into the ranks, and they were not charged with any violation at all for having taken a card and gone in and worked during a strike in '37. Mr. Keaens. I see what you mean. Mr. Owens. I was trying to bring out why they were incensed about it in '45 during the war, when they were not incensed about it in '37, when there was not a war. Mr. Kearns. Didn't the witness bring out that they accepted that and were living in hopes they would get a jurisdictional mandate? Mr. Owens. He made a very fine answer. He said from 1928 on it was clouding up. In '37 they were in a organizational state in their local, and they went along with it in order to be able to survive; but in '45 they were fully organized, and that was probably the reason why they did what they did. That was about the substance, was it not, Mr. Wayne? Mr. Wayne. Yes, but there is a little bit more to the answer to your question. Your question was, why we did not take punitive action at that time. Mr. Oavens. You mean in '37 or '45? Mr. Wayne. In '37. When you get a closed-shop agreement with management, it carries the further requirement that you take into your union all people who are then working at the trade in that unit. We have not choice in the matter. Quite often a imion must take in people they would much rather not take in, but in order to get their closed shop they will take those people in. Mr. Owens. Of course, that applied to your shop, but the men who accepted the card of the lA then went over and worked behind the strike lines durinof '37. You did keep them in your group. Mr. Wayne. This happened during April and May. We got our closed shop on the 24th of June as a result of that strike, so the things that happened in that period brought up the closed-shop contract. Mr. Oaahens. It is a little hard for me to reconcile some of these things. When men are supposed to be strikebreakers in a plant like that and where men go in to organize it and after a while thev organ- ize these men, then when they have a majority take over the balance, to try to say what men are union men and what men are not union men, it makes it awfully difficult for one man to figure it out, even one who has been with labor all through the years, as I have. Mr. Wayne. That is true, but there are few societies that do not have undesirables, and we have them in our unions, too. Mr. O^ATiNS. Well, there are imdesirables, Mr. Wayne, at the top of your union who are a lot more undesirable than many of the men in the ranks, from what I have found in the investigation here. That is made right in public. It is time that some of them were removed from the top. There might be less trouble at the bottom. That is all. Mr, Kearns. I have just one question, Mr. Wayne. In 1937, when vou had the two cards, were the machinists then affiliated with the A. F. of L. ? Mr. Wayne. I did not have two cards. Mr. Kearns. You did not, but I mean over at M-G-M.