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)

2342 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES dent," listiiifT all the unions, including the carpenters, Mr. Sorrell says this to Mr. Casey : That we were to begin negotiations witli you for long delayed contracts. In that telegram he insists on further meetings for the purpose of concluding contracts. Finally in a telegram dated November 10, 1946, from Mr. Sorrell as president of the Conference of Studio Unions to Mr. Casey, he says : Your delaying tactics will not weaken our figlit but on the other hand wilV only cause vis to intensify our activities and negotiations to achieve contracts and decent wages and hours for all workers in the industry. In a similar telegram addressed to the Association of Motion Picture Producers, dated November 5, 1946, Mr. Sorrell on behalf of the Conference of Studio Unions' says this. The Conference of Studio Unions therefore demands an immediate nweting to negotiate contract on wages, hours, and working conditions. So that as a matter of law whether we had a l)iiiding legal agreement in the contract of July 2, the Beverly Hills treaty, is a matter on which there can be some difference of opinion. The point I want to emphasize is that we entered into that agreement in good faith and if it was a binding legal agreement then unquestionably it was breached and it was no longer binding upon the producers after the Conference of Studio Unions had taken its position with respect to hot sets, gone out on strikes', set up the picket lines and had refused to permit their people to go to work. On the other hand, if it is not a binding legal agreement then, of course, there is no obligation. I have read these extracts from Sorrell's telegrams to indicate to you that even though Mr. Cobb argued here they had a binding legal agreement Mr. Sorrell, the chief negotiator for the Conference of Studio Unions and for the carpenters, took tlij& flat position in this correspondence that they never had a contract with us. I say it is a rather muddied up legal situation but I wanted to bring that out so that there would not be any misinterpretation about my testimony. So far as the situation which existed after the hot set ultimatum, with respect to the employees, I think the record is clear on that. The men were laid off for refusal to do the work assigned to them, for refusal to do the jobs that they were obligated to do. In my testimony the other day somebody told me there might be some misnnderstanding as to the contracts in existence and I wanted to clear that up. I said that so far as the work in the striking crafts of carpenters and painters, not the set-erection work — set-erection work under the December 1945, decision had been given the lA and we did enter into a contract with the lA, a union or a closed-shop contract with the lA to do the set-erection work — but so far as all the other carpenter work and all the other painters work is concerned, we have never entered into any contracts with the lA. The testimony here I think has been very clear that the strikers were replaced but that as vacancies have occurred men are being hired back without regard to whether they are lA members, painters members, or members of any other union, and that as to those particular situations, namely, the painting work which has been under contract