| For four years, studio craftworkers and technicians endured the dictatorial reign of a syndicate-run union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IA). Workers elected no local officers, elected no delegates to the biennial conventions, could not strike, suffered severe unemployment, and had to pay high dues and an extra assessment to their International. The IA took business unionism to its logical extreme, making a profitable enterprise of selling labor to the motion picture industry. For nearly three years, studio locals attempted unsuccessfully to reform the practices of this union. In 1937 the Studio Painters and other locals tried to establish a locus of bargaining power by banding together and striking. That attempt at unity failed, although studio labor groups later joined temporarily around the issues of employment, jurisdiction and bargaining strategy. After reform efforts failed, dissident IA members formed a rival union, the United Studio Technicians Guild (USTG). The USTG challenged the IA in a representation election, held in September 1939. Despite the IA's abuses and the USTG's promise to seek job security and socioeconomic benefits, the IA won by a better than two-to-one margin. This study examines three explanations for the IA's victory: wages (Wisconsin School of labor history), alliances (Charles Tilly), and consciousness (Michael Mann). Primary source material does not bear out hypotheses based on wages. The IA offset periodic wage increases by tolerating seasonal unemployment, flooding the labor market, and extracting money from members. Workers concerned about scarce job opportunity looked to management--not the IA--for a solution. The alliances hypothesis demonstrates that the IA's victory resulted from the maneuvering of many groups. The IA had strong alliances with the Chicago syndicate, industry executives, AFL unions, and the Screen Actors Guild. The USTG had only weak alliances with the CIO and the State. Workers' conservative consciousness explains why they reacted to the two unions' alliances by voting for the IA. Workers were divided, accepted management, did not practice class analysis, and had little experience with collective control. |
