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MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES 1519
On behalf of the lATSE I want to say there has been and there is no colhision or conspiracy between the lATSE and the producers, or any of them, and that if there is a conspiracy in this jurisdictional situation the conspiracy is on the other foot. I want to present, in response to the permission granted me by the subcommittee, some items in support of that situation.
You will recollect that the strike in March of 1945 was claimed to have resulted from the fact that there were some 50, 60, or 70 set decorators whom the producers refused to negotiate with, insofar as they had become affiliates of the painters' organization connected with the Conference of Studio Unions. It was said that that was the reason for the strike.
It has always been the position of the lATSE — that was one of the first things Mr. Walsh and I discovered when we went out to Hollywood— that as a matter of fact that was merely the spark which set this strike off and that the reasons for the strike, the basic reasons, were something entirely diflferent.
Let me mention one of them at this point. Here I quote from the minutes of the carpenters before the American Federation of Labor executive council committee at pages 7 to 8 on December 6, 1945. Mr. Cambiano testified :
I have instructed our representative, Jim Skelton, here, not to resort to any stoppage of work, strikes or otherwise —
This was before the March 1945 strike —
until I had an opportunity to come in.
Parenthetically I want to say, come in not for the set decorators, but come in for carpenters before the set decorators strike in March 1945.
But it got so bad that it became necessary for me to communicate with the labor-relations department of the studios here through our office that we have here under the six basic trades.
They in turn would notify the producers that the carpenters were going to insist upon their just work.
I want to emphasize the expression "just work," meaning the work to which they claim they are justly entitled. That to my mind — and I parenthesize this — is a euphemism in order to effectuate a desire to get work which someone else has under the jurisdictional arrangements among the parties.
I have that among the records here on file with you. I am bringing this out to show that this thing has just been going along step by step, and it so happened that when this turmoil of the painters took place it was through my recommendation that I was preparing for a strike vote —
in the carpenters —
to be honest with you, and when the painters' strike took place why of course it just was made to order for us and I instructed local 946 not to go through the picket line.
That is not my statement, sir. That is the statement of the carpenters' general representative.
Several attempts were made afterwards to settle with the carpenters, meaning Mr. Walsh and Mr. Hutcheson.
We met here several times with Mr. Walsh and we met back East. The carpenters could have made a deal, at lest they said so, if we would have agreed to go back to work.