IATSE-2nd2018_web

attlefield the next day, this time armed with an injunction
from a Superior Court judge that barred the police from
interfering with the strike. Warner Brothers got its own
injunction limiting the number of picketers to no more than
three at a gate.
The following week, violence again broke out at Warner. This
time people came armed with some sort of weapon. Thirty-nine
people were injured. Many Warner workers who had managed
to get through the picket lines stayed inside the studio that
night. Others were brought in during the middle of the night.
The violence continued throughout the week, although not as
brutally as in the first days.
On October 11, three hundred picketerts were arrested
and jailed for violent conduct on the picket line. The public
was now paying close attention and there was increasing
pressure to settle matters. The NLRB was finally forced to
make a decision: Who would represent the set decorators, the
CSU or the IA?
The NLRB decided that votes of both the strikers and their
replacements would be counted. The tally was 55 to 45 in favor
of the CSU. Despite this vote, neither the strike nor the violence
ended due to other jurisdictional arguments that had grown out
of the conflict.
After six more months of struggle, a meeting in Cincinnati
was called between the producers and the unions. While they
were meeting, the mass picketing and violence spread to several
other large studios, including RKO, Paramount and Republic.
A settlement of sorts was reached in Cincinnati. The strike
would end and a 30-day period of negotiations would be held on
all jurisdictional issues. All strikers would return to their former
jobs and replacements would be given sixty days severance pay.
The committee awarded set erection to IATSE Local 80, which
had been founded in 1939 to represent motion picture grips (it
now also represents craft service, marine, first aid employees,
and warehouse workers). It based this decision primarily on a
1925 settlement between the IA and the Carpenters that led to
the Studio Basic Agreement. The matters not settled during this
time would be worked out by a three-member committee drawn
from the AFL Executive Council. Their eventual decision would
be the cause of the next long and bitter internal labor dispute
and strike.
THE LAST GREAT STRUGGLE
In January 1946, members of Carpenters Local 946 staged
sit-ins at Universal and Columbia to protest the AFL committee’s
decision. Pressured by the Carpenters’ “Big Bill” Hutcheson, AFL
President William Green then issued a statement calling for a
“clarification” of the committee’s decision.
Carpenters Local 946 then joined the CSU, substantially
increasing the number of workers in the Conference. The
producers were given an ultimatum: increase pay and adjust
hours to provide work for returning veterans or face a major
strike. Negotiations quickly broke down. A short time later,
fights over the various jurisdictional problems — Painters and
Carpenters versus IA grips, for example — were leading to
layoffs of hundreds of workers .
Finally, in the summer of 1946, CSU members walked off
the job. At this point, an agreement, known as the “Treaty of
Beverly Hills,” was reached in which the strikers returned to work
and all workers received a 25 percent wage increase and a 36-
hour work week.
THE DEATH OF THE CSU
At long last, the AFL three-person committee on jurisdictional
disputes in Hollywood issued its “clarification” of the set erection
issue, awarding construction to the Carpenters and assembly to
the IATSE, essentially reversing the 1945 ruling that supported the
IA’s position. Subsequently, under continuing pressure from the
37