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 1483 Mr. Walsh. There has been quite a picture presented about set erection and how the committee came about giving the clarification of set erection. There has been very little said about the clarilication of the decision. First we had a decision, then we had a clarification and then we had an interpretation of the clarification. There hasn't been anything said about that and I think I will keep quiet ab')ut it, too. I would like to draw to the attention of the committee some of the facts before this three-man committee was appointed. I am not going l)a(k and review the case like I did before you in Hollywood, because rhat would take entirely too long. When we went to Cincinnati, the carpenters, the painters, the ma- chinists, the electricians, the publicists, the office workers, and all these people affiliated with the Conference of Studio Unions or sj^m- pathizing with the Conference of Studio Unions, were out on the street. They were not in the studios. They had not been in the studios for several months. The lATSE was in the studios and running the studios and the studios were operating and producing pictures. Mr. Kearxs. Before the Cincinnati meeting? Mr. Walsh. This was prior to the Cincinnati meeting. These people were far from getting into the studios. There wasn't any chance of them getting back. They had tried through violence and every other means at their command to get back into the studios, but they had lost, they were out. There has been much said here about the committee having 30 days in which to make a decision. I want you to know that just prior to the Cincinnati agreement all the organizations concerned in the Hol- lywood controversy had met in Washington, D. C, under the chair- manship of President Green of the American Federation of Labor. We had arrived at an agreement there whereby the international presidents were going to appoint committees in Hollywood, commit- tees of the local unions and the people who were supposed to know the work in the Hollywood studios. Mr. Kearns. Supposed to ? Mr. AValsh. Supposed to is right. At this meeting, everybody concerned with the strike who was out in the street was insisting that the committees we were going to ap- point in Hollywood would have only 5 days to make their decision. The international presidents were at this meeting. Brother Hutche- son was not there; he sent his son. But all these other people who were out in the street insisted that we say "5 days" to this committee. I told them I thought that was a farce; that it was not possible to decide jurisdiction in Hollywood in 5 days. I was overruled and the finding of the committee was that the local committees that were going to go into this subject matter would have 5 days to make a report to the international presidents and if they could not agree the international presidents were to sit down and try to straighten it out. So I wanted you to know when they gave the committee 30 days they were giving them a long time. That never came about, the ap- pointment of the committees in Hollywood, because violence broke out, and there was quite a lot done out there. Then Eric Johnston entered the picture, and we wound up in Cincinnati.