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)

1534 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES Mr. Owens. Did you write that very fine legal letter for liim, Judge ? Mr. Levy. I would say I participated in its preparation-. Now, here is a letter, Mr. Chairman, which I did write. I wrote this letter to Mr. Kearns on November 28, 1947, at the request of the lATSE and pursuant to the permission given to me by Mr. Kearns in Los Angeles. The letter speaks for itself, and I should like to read it : Hon. Carroli> D. Keabns, Chairman, Subcommittee on the Hollywood Studio Labor Strikes, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. Dear Congressman Kearns : On behalf of Mr. Richard F. Walsh, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada, and Mr. Roy M. Brewer, International representative in Hollywood of that organization, and pursuant to the authorization of the subcommittee, Mr. Michael G. Luddy, of Los Angeles, west coast counsel, and I, as special counsel for the lATSE in the Hollywood labor situation, herewith submit the following statement to be included in the record of the Hollywood hearings in the inquiry conducted by your subcommittee in the matter of the Hollywood studio labor strikes. I. Normal jurisdictional labor problems existed in the studios for some years, largely as a result of the many unions and of the nature of the work. These normal jurisdictional differences might have been peaceably resolved in ordinary trade-unions channels were it not that the pro-Communist elements in the studios had irritated and magnified the jurisdictional differences into internecine labor explosions. More is involved in the Hollywood labor situation than ordinary jurisdictional differences. No investigation of the jurisdictional strikes in Hollywood from 1944 to date can or will give a complete picture of the situation, without a recognition and study of Communist infiltration and tactics in the Hollywood studio unions. (a) One Jeff Kibre, as the representative of the Communist Party in Hollywood prior to 1939, planned to form an unemployment conference of various studio unions for the purpose of laying a foundation for an industrial union in opposition in the lATSE, which was and is a bulwark against Communist supremacy in Hollywood, and for the purpose of capturing control of studio labor for the Communist Party. Upon receiving information that it was possible to obtain an election to designate a collective bargaining representative under the National Labor Relations Act, Kibre changed his tactics and organized the United Studio Technicians Guild (USTG), petitioned for an election, obtained an order for such election from the National Labor Relations Board, and endeavored to win control of all studio labor by this method. This plan was thwarted in 1939 when the Communist sponsors behind Kibre were exposed. This exposure showed among other things that Kibre was reporting to Bob Reed, a Communist Party representative in New York, and to Harry Bridges in San Francisco ; that one Irwin Henschel was a part of the organization which assisted Kibre; that Henschel was sent to the 1938 convention of the lATSE with instructions from Kibre as to a certain resolution which Communist Party representatives in California wanted passed by that convention; that the acting secretary of the Communist Party of Ohio objected to Henschel's activities, as indicated in correspondence by Roy Hudson, then trade union secretary of the Communist Party and later editor of the Daily Worker in New York ; that Henschel's Communist motives and reliability were vouched for ; and that Kibre's efforts were directed to establish a Communist faction within the lATSE. This is the same Irwin Henschel who was the leader of the so-called "rank and file movement" of the Sorrell-directed strike of the CSU in 1945. (b) The same program which Kibre had outlined originally in his reports (that is, before he changed his plan to procure an election under the auspices of the NLRB, and which election he lost in 1939) was used by Sorrell later, and Sorrell was aided by the same Henschel. Many of the same persons who had previously supported Kibre supported Sorrell in the strikes from 1944 to 1947. (c) Since its organization, the CSU has followed the Communist Party line. The president of the CSU, Herbert K. Sorrell, since 1937, has followed the Communist Party line.