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1560 MOTIOK -PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES
different motion-picture companies, a paper known as the basic agreement. That paper — I believe legally any attorney would tell you it is not worth the paper it is written on, and perhaps it is not. It just covered what the idea was. It was a paper where you depended upon the signatories to the paper more than you did on any legal language that might be in the paper.
Tliere was nothing in that agreement at any time that had anything to do with any jurisdiction.
Meetings w^ere held and at those meetings the only matters that were brought up or that could be brought up were matters of wages, hours, and conditions. At no time did we ever allow a jurisdictional matter to be brought up at those meetings as we felt those were things that should be settled amongst the unions themselves and with which management had nothing to do.
From 1926, the time when that agreement was entered into, up until the latter part of 1935 or 193G — I am not sure which — we operated in California under an open shop. We made wage conditions with these unions .and we paid everybody in the studio the same wage, whether or not he belonged to any of these organizations or whether he was a free lance.
I have heard it said here — and I want to state that it is not so — that the strike was called on wages and hours. That is not so and I am sure the follow who made the statement was mistaken.
It was a jurisdictional fight between members of the lATSE union known as the soundmen's union and the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers known as the IBEW.
When the original agreement was entered into, of course, nobody thought there was going to be talking pictures. But like every other industry things changed.
About the time that talking pictures came into existence then we had a jurisdictional dispute as to whether or not members of the lATSE local or members of the IBEW would do the work.
Tliat controversy kept going for quite a while.
Finally in 1933 a Mr. Harold Smith, who was the business agent of the lATSE soundmen's local, and Mr. Hurd, who was the business agent of the cameramen's local, took it upon themselves, without any authority from the international of the lATSE, to send out wires and call a strike. Unfortunately the poor fellows working in the studios figured, I presume, that they had some authority because they followed the instructions of the wires from both Smith and Hurd and they went on strike.
Now at that time, gentlemen, I want to have you distinctly understand it was open shop. There were no picket lines put around. The producers had a ri^ht to go out on the street and hire anybodv that they wanted to. But the carpenters and electricians of the IBEW stepped in and took over such work as was necessary for them to do in order to keep the studios open and, of course, the studios hired whoever they wanted from the outside to fill up the gap.
That went on, as I say, until either the latter part of 1935 or 1936. There had been a change in the officers of lATSE. The men in charge at that time insisted they be allowed to come back under the basic agreement.