IATSE-2nd2018_web

population was still extremely small, and the government
wanted to speed up the settlement process throughout the vast
mid section of the nation.
Over the next few decades, they sponsored or produced
many movies depicting the beauty of Canada. The Canadian
Pacific Railroad established a Colonization Department, which
sponsored thirteen one reel films, eleven of them dramatic, to
promote immigration.
The first dramatic film made in Canada was Hiawatha, the
Messiah of the Ojibways. This 800-foot reel was directed and
photographed by Joe Rosenthal and was the brainchild of E.A.
Armstrong of Montreal.
Before the shift toward California, many American
filmmakers saw the promise of the beautiful Canadian landscape
and turned their attention northward.
By 1913 American producers had begun tapping the Canadian
repertoire of films, releasing many of the dramatic productions
made by IATSE brothers and sisters in the North. While there
were frequent and frustrating labor disputes in Canada, their
entertainment industry pioneers were independent and creative
individuals who were generally spared the strife and turmoil that
dominated Hollywood.
THE LURE OF HOLLYWOOD
Initially, making movies in New Jersey was fine, but as the
demand for movies increased, the unpredictable weather and
long winter days when sunlight was at a minimum became more
of a problem. The industry had not yet perfected the lighting
techniques which would make filming easier later on. Quite
simply, they needed better weather.
In addition some directors and producers were anxious
to move away from the East because they were being harassed
by the Edison Company, which held the patents on movie
cameras. Edison expected large royalties from those companies
using his camera. But the small start-up companies could not
afford to pay, so they began to look for other options.
The abundant sunlight, little rain, and wide-open spaces
of sunny California beckoned. Westerns shot on location were
becoming increasingly popular, and the unpopulated outskirts
of Los Angeles provided a perfect setting.
Unfortunately, it was appealing to motion picture-makers for
another reason: Los Angeles had a history of being a staunchly
“open shop” city. Southern California labor unions were among
the most hard-pressed of any in the country. This struggle went
on for several decades while the city of Los Angeles went through
a series of economic booms and busts.
A small group of men, led by General Harrison Gray Otis,
publisher of the Los Angeles Times, created the Chamber of
Commerce to address the economic decline of the city. They did
what they could to lure businesses to town. And that included
keeping wages down and busting unions.
They also recruited new residents from the East to stimulate
real estate sales and glut the labor pool. This artificially large
labor pool was estimated to keep wages as much as forty percent
lower in Los Angeles than in San Francisco.
Central to this plan was ensuring that labor in Los Angeles
remain unorganized. In 1896, Otis and other business leaders
formed the Merchants and Manufacturers Association (M&M)
and through the L.A. Times venomously attacked organized labor.
But this highly-organized and hateful opposition did not
prevent the theatrical workers from forming the Los Angeles
Theatrical Workers Union in 1891 and joining the Alliance in 1896.
The labor situation came to a head in 1910 when M&M
managed to ram through an anti-picketing ordinance through
the L.A. City Council. In a short time, 470 workers were arrested
for picketing. However, the public sympathized with the strikers
and juries released the defendants almost as quickly as they were
arrested.
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