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)

1490 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES had always had this work we thought they should continue to give us this work; that we had these set erectors; we had these carpenters, and we had these other men standing by during this 60-day period waiting to go bacli on whatever jobs the committee of three gave us. If they gave us one job we would go back on one job. If they gave us 100 jobs we would go back on 100 jobs. Now, you sent me a letter in which it says that this committee of three seemed to be deceived in some way. I don't know whether that meant that I deceived them or not, but I want you, or counsel, or anybody else, when I finish—if you have any questions to ask about whether I deceived the committee or not—I would like to answer them, because I did not deceive the committee and I did not try to deceive the committee in any way, shape, manner or form. Mr. Landis, With respect to the historical part of it, could you tell us what year it was when the carpenters took over part of that work ? Mr, Walsh. It dates back to about '21. The argument started in maybe 1920. It dates back, from the explanation I received and all the research I went through, to where we needed extra men, where we needed more people to help us in the studio. Instead of going out and picking up anybody on the street, we went to our brother organiza- tions and said, "Come on in here and help us." Mr. Landis. I thought you said your first contract was in 1918. Mr. Walsh. '18 was the first agreement I mentioned. We had con- tact before that. The studios date back prior to '18. Mr. Landis. I mean your first contract with the carpenters to do part of the work. Mr. Walsh. I mentioned the first agreement between the carpen- ters and ourselves; you are correct, it dates back to '18. Mr. Kearns. That is when they differentiated in millwork from everything else done under the roof ? Mr. Walsh. No; there was nothing in there about that. It said "carpentry work." That agreement of '18 is as bad as some of the agreements of today. You try to find out what is in the agreement and you have to go back to how they were working it. The words of the agreement mean a whole lot, but putting the words into practice was terrible—just as bad as I just presented. In presenting this case before the three men, we contended that the entire jurisdiction should belong to the lATSE. We argued about props; we argued about set erection; we argued about carpenter work; we tried to show them pictures as to why we should get this carpentry work. We tried to have people testify before the committee. We had all the business representatives of our organization there, and we tried to do the best job we could. As it has been testified here, we went through the studios, or the studio, I should say. That was Paramount studio. In going through Paramount studio with this committee it was not an easy job, as I was the only representative from the lATSE. We had 16 local unions, but it was again the ruling of the committee that each international organization would only have 1 representative. Now, although I had 16 local unions and 16 different crafts out there, they only allowed 1 representative from the lATSE. So, when we walked into the studio and over on one side of the shop was nothing