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)

1540 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES nated the lA I believe that Mr. Hutcheson would quickly find out how little real economic strength the carpenters' organization has in the studio. Our position was, as I urged upon the committee this morning, that you can no more adequately investigate World War II without studying the Stalin-Hitler pact, than you could investigate the Hollywood jurisdiction of disputes without going into the tieup between Mr. Sorrell of the Conference of Studio Unions, and Hutcheson of the carpenters' organization in this marriage of convenience which I have indicated. If we are going to make a thorough investigation those two factors mlist be kept in mind, on the basis of which we can come to a fair conclusion as to the reason for the continued strife. On March 11, 1947, Mr. Kichard F. Walsh, the international president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada addressed a telegram to the Honorable Fred A. Hartley, chairman of the House Labor Committee. Wliile that telegram is in the record, so far as the hearings with respect to the amendments to the National Labor Relations Act are concerned, it is not in the record of the Washington hearings of this Hollywood jurisdiction dispute, and therefore I should like to be permitted to proceed to read it : Having taken note of publicity given to the testimony of one Oscar Schatte before your committee I want to urge you to complete the investigation so that all the facts may be ascertained and made known to the public. The one-sided testimony given by Schatte is misleading and prejudicial to the thousands of loyal workers who have refused to surrender to the strong arm and subversive elements in Hollywood with whom Schatte is associated and whom he is trying to defend. Several hundred members of our organization have been injured or have suffei'ed damage at the hands of goons many of whom have been identified as being associated with the so-called Conference of Studio Unions w'hich, under the leadership of Sorrell, has been conducting this long strike to deprive our organization of jurisdiction in the Hollywood studios. Schatte shopworn hearsay charge often repeated and never proved, that I or our international union is in any way involved in racketeering practices, or that we are in any way associated with Bioff is absolutely false. I challenge him to submit any proof in support of that charge. I want to parenthesize by saying that in Hollywood I, on behalf of the organization whom I represent, made the same challenge before this honorable committee, before it was increased in size, because I felt that if there was any racketeering in Hollywood since 1941, November, when Mr. Walsh became the president, I — and I consider myself an honorable member of the bar — would not want to represent that organization. No proof was presented. I make the same challenge again. [Reading :] The false charge thus made before your committee as a sounding board is intended to bolster up a dying morale on the part of those who have been duped by Sorrell's false propaganda. The fact is that the present controversy was caused and is being continued solely by the action of Conference of Studio Unions in conducting its vicious jurisdictonal strike against us. I am personally proud of the fight which our organization is making against the pro-Communist elements in Hollywood. Their No. 1 goal is to destroy the lATSE, universally recognized as the most effective bulwark against the capture by those disloyal to America of control over the motion picture industry. A complete investigation will show the American people, who are the truly resixmsible parties in the Hollywood conflict. We will welcome such an investigation and we shall assist in every possible way.