IATSE-2nd2018_web

with the IBEW for all sound and electrical work. In addition,
grip and property work were taken from Local 37 and given to
the Carpenters union.
The results were devastating. In just a few short months,
Local 695 dropped from several hundred members to just over
sixty and Local 37 declined from several thousand to around
forty. Estimates are that the overall membership of the Alliance
in the Hollywood studios dropped from 9,000 to just 200.
According to a blistering report in Variety:
Two months before the strike, producers are said to
have had a tacit agreement to fight the IATSE to a
finish regardless of the cost and to break the strength
of the individual and combined locals. The IBEW
claimed that the AFL had granted them jurisdiction
over film sound technicians, but the AFL records from
that period offer no evidence of such a ruling by the
AFL. The claim to legitimacy under AFL fiat was
nothing more than a ruse aimed at covering up what
was surely yet another ‘back room’ deal worked out
between the unions — in this case the IBEW and the
Carpenters — and the producers.
All this despite a ruling by the National Labor Board that the
studios “take employees back without prejudice, strikers to be
given preference before new employees are taken on, and that
they may retain membership in their organization.”
This ruling was not enforced.
A letter in the September 20, 1933 issue of The Nation gives
an accurate and poignant picture of what conditions were like in
Hollywood:
The next morning, the men crowded outside the studio
gates. Just about a hundred men, in most cases the
highly skilled ones who could not be replaced, were
taken back. The rest, close to four thousand, were
politely told that the jobs were filled by union scabs. But
in the future, should there be any openings, they would
be hired ‘without prejudice,’ providing they joined the
strike breaking unions. The strike overnight became a
lockout. The men are helpless. ... So the New Deal has
come to Hollywood in the form of unemployment to
men who have loyally worked in the studios for many
years. The men are bitter. Some pace the streets in a
daze. Rumblings are heard about murder, beatings,
and sabotage. ... In the meantime, one of the strongest
unions in the country is broken in body and spirit; the
men are locked out as a result of the treachery of a
handful of cameramen, the knavery of two unions ...
and the great power and influence of the NRA.
ON THE REBOUND
The bitter setback of the 1933 strike was ameliorated by
passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. The law brought
what the labor movement had been fighting for: a minimum wage
of twenty-five cents an hour (equal to $4.36 in today’s dollars), a
44-hour work week with an eventual reduction to forty hours a
week in three years, and paid overtime at time-and-a-half.
Most studio workers and stagehands already made more
than the minimum wage, but the overtime provision did make
a major difference, because many had contracts that called for
work weeks in excess of fifty hours.
In many cases, studios chose to comply with the law not by
paying overtime, but by rearranging production schedules to
fit the 44-hour week. Existing workers gained by having more
reasonable hours, while others benefited as more workers were
hired to make up the difference.
The year 1938 was a landmark one for IATSE for another
reason — the final resolution of one of the most IA’s most
important jurisdictional battles.
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