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)

MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES 2253 Mr. ZoRN. There is no question about that. I think that again disproves a great many of the statements Mr. Sorrell made here. I am not going to attempt to disprove all of them. He made the statement that everybody was working there and they were all voting. Obviously it was a very close election. Mr. IvEAKNS. This recognition of the 1421 local has been almost a criteria in the thing, has it not? I mean you can date back to that fight for recognition there. Mr. ZoRx. That is right. A little later on I will try to cover very briefly that 1945 strike, but I think you gentlemen are primarily interested in the 1946 situation. The 1945 strike was started by the strike instituted by the painters when they walked out of the National Labor Relations Board hearings on March 12, 1945, and were joined by all the other Conference of Studio Union Mr. Levy. Three j-ears ago toda}-. Mr. ZoRX. It is an anniversary date. Then the carpenters, as you will recall, jNIr. Kearns, were not then members of the Conference of Studio Unions but they supported the strike. The testimony has been gone over time and time again. The testimony, as you will recall very briefly just to take us back to that time, was that the carpenters then insisted on straightening out their jurisdictional questions, and that is what prolonged the strike, right through until the time of the October Cincinnati meeting of the American Federation of Labor. The thing that touched it off, of course, was the set dressers" strike and this argument about recognition. In that connection also — and perhaps it Avill save a little time while we are on that subject — I do not think it has been made clear enough in the discussions here about this 1945 strike. But both Mr. Walsh and Mr. Casey testified that in 1942 that an lA negotiation in New York the lA demanded recognition for the set dressers, who at that time were under this independent society contract which had been signed shortly before, sometime in 1942 and which ran for 5 years. They were told by the producers that they had a contract with the society and when Mr. Walsh, according to his testimony — which was corroljorated by Mr. Casey — said. "Well, if they ever go any place else, I am going to demand them," he was then told by the producers that they would abide by a certification of the Labor Relations Board. The same thing occurred at the lA meetings with the producers in 1944, when the lA again made a demand for these people and the producers said they would go along only with a representative duly certified by the National Labor Relations Board. That is why, when you get all this testimony about this Thomas Tongue award, which was put in the record by Mr. Bodle the other day, the producers took the position that the matter was one for the National Labor Relations' Board and that the War Labor Board was without jurisdiction. The Tongue report makes it very clear that the question was really a representation question, because the producers were again in the middle. There was another issue involved which Mr. Bodle has skipped over entirely. 68383 — i8— vol. 3 48