Finding Aid for the Hollywood Studio Strike Collection LSC.0226

Finding aid prepared by Manuscripts Division staff, October 1968; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé.
UCLA Library Special Collections
Online finding aid last updated 2002.
Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575
Business Number: 310-825-4988
Fax Number: 310-206-1864
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
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Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Hollywood Studio Strike collection
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.0226
Physical Description: 2.0 linear feet (4 boxes)
Physical Description: 1.5 linear feet (1 unprocessed flat box)
Date (inclusive): 1944-1985
Date (bulk): 1944-1948
Abstract: The Hollywood studio strike began on March 12, 1945 when the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) went on strike to protest the studios' delay in granting a contract renewal for interior decorators despite opposition from the larger, more established International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Operators of the United States and Canada (IATSE). The collection consists of materials dealing with the studio strike of 1945 and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada (IATSE).
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.

Restrictions on Access

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Restrictions on Use and Reproduction

Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
  • Gift of Screen Publicists Guild, 1945.
  • Gift of Gene Mailes, 1960-85.

UCLA Catalog Record ID

UCLA Catalog Record ID: 9917204893606533 

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Hollywood Studio Strike Collection (Collection 226). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Processing Information

Processed by Manuscripts Division staff, October 1968.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
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Biography

The Hollywood studio strike began on March 12, 1945 when the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) went on strike to protest the studios' delay in granting a contract renewal for interior decorators despite opposition from the larger, more established International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Operators of the United States and Canada (IATSE). The collection consists of materials dealing with the studio strike of 1945 and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada (IATSE).
Biographica Note from original paper finding aid:

The Hollywood studio strike began on March 12, 1945 when the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU), consisting of nine unions and nearly ten thousand workers led by Herbert Sorrell, went on strike to protest the studios' delay in granting a contract renewal for interior decorators despite opposition from the larger, more established International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Operators of the United States and Canada (IATSE). In early October 1945, CSU concentrated its pickets at Warner Brothers; a series of fights ensued and police, studio guards, and IATSE forced the strikers to retreat. At the end of October, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of CSU, and the studios and IATSE gave way. In early 1946, CSU tried to negotiate a new wage contract with the studios, but disagreements lead to another strike in the summer of 1946. IASTE sent their employees to keep the studios open, provoking more armed clashes. The Screen Actors Guild and 24 other Hollywood unions denounced the strike as a jurisdictional dispute, affirming their right to cross the picket lines. CSU's failure to close the studios led to a vote in October 1947 by the painters union which broke the strike; CSU disintegrated and faded away.

Scope and Content

Collection consists of materials dealing with the Hollywood studio strike of 1945 and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada (IATSE). Includes newspaper clippings from the Hollywood Sun and the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) news, mimeographed statements to union members, correspondence, ephemera, and a copy of the IATSE proceedings with taped reminiscences of Gene Mailes.

Organization and Arrangement

Arranged in the following series:
  1. Correspondence and ephemera.
  2. National Labor Relations Board materials and union newspapers.
  3. Copy of IATSE proceedings, audio tape of Gene Mailes' reminiscences of proceedings, and printed materials (1945-85).

Related Material

You Don't Choose Your Friends: the Memoirs of Herbert Knott Sorrell [oral history transcript] / Herbert Knott Sorrell, interviewee.   UCLA Oral History Department interview, 1963. Available at UCLA Library Special Collections.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

Audiotapes.
Strikes and lockouts -- Motion picture industry -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archives.
Motion picture industry -- Employees -- Labor unions -- United States -- Archives.
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada.
Mailes, Gene
United States--National Labor Relations Board.

 

Correspondence and Ephemera Material

box 1, folder 1

Conference of Studio Unions.

Scope and Contents note

Various printed material dealing with the C.S.U. also folder 1A (added August 1969).
box 1, folder 2

Correspondence--Abroad.

box 1, folder 3

IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees).

box 1, folder 3

Information Bulletin.

box 1, folder 4

IATSE.

box 1, folder 4

Correspondence (Brewer, Walsh).

box 1, folder 5

IATSE, Local 683.

box 1, folder 5

Correspondence.

box 1, folder 6

IATSE, Local 683.

box 1, folder 6

Film Technician's Daily Bulletin November 1946-June 1947.

box 1, folder 7

IATSE, Local 705.

box 1, folder 7

Correspondence.

box 1, folder 8

Inter-faith Council of Los Angeles.

box 1, folder 9

Leaflets.

box 1, folder 10

McKnight, Russell L.

box 1, folder 10

Correspondence.

box 1, folder 11

Manuscript material.

box 1, folder 12

Miscellaneous.

box 1, folder 13

Miscellaneous ephemera.

box 1, folder 14

Press Lists.

box 1, folder 15

Press releases.

box 1, folder 16

Strike trials.

 

National Labor Relations Board Materials and Union Newspapers

box 2, folder 1

U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour division.

box 2, folder 1

Correspondence.

box 2, folder 2

N.L.R.B.--Decorator's Case.

box 2, folder 3

IATSE Disciplinary hearings, testimony typescript, pp.2424-2565.

box 2, folder 4

IATSE Disciplinary hearings appeal and N.L.R.B. decision.

box 2, folder 5

Costumer's News.

box 2, folder 6

CSU News vol.1 no.4-36, incomplete. November 1946-August 1947.

box 2, folder 7

Hollywood Atom vol.1 no.1-43, incomplete. August-November 1945.

box 2, folder 8

Hollywood Close-up, 8 numbers, incomplete. November 1945-July 1946.

 

Union Newspapers and Miscellaneous Clippings

box 3, folder 1

Hollywood Sun, vol.1 no.2-16. Incomplete, May-August 1945.

box 3, folder 2

Hollywood Sun, vol.1 no.18-32. Incomplete, September-December 1945.

box 3, folder 3

Hollywood Sun, vol.2 no.1-26. Incomplete, January-June 1946.

box 3, folder 4

Hollywood Sun, vol.3 no.1-21. Incomplete, July-November 1946.

box 3, folder 5

Hollywood Sun, vol.4 no.7-10. February-March 1947.

box 3, folder 6

Los Angeles Times. Incomplete, May 1947-March 1948.

box 3, folder 7

The Progressive Citizen.

box 3, folder 8

The Union Labor Sun, vol.4 no.12-24. March 26-June 11, 1947.

box 3, folder 9

Daily Variety.

box 3, folder 9

Scattered issues and clippings.

box 3, folder 10

Miscellaneous newspapers.

box 3, folder 11

Miscellaneous clippings.

General note

Additional materials donated March 1985.
box 4

Cassette tape recordings of Gene Mailes' reminiscences relating to the IATSE proceedings and related copy proceedings and printed materials, ca. 1945-1985.