I.A.T.S.E.

The man who is known as the tsar of the motion picture industry is Will H. Hays. Potentially more powerful than Tsar Hays is a man named George E. Browne. His terrific title: President of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes of the American Federation of Labor. In Hollywood's studios 12,000 workmen are members of unions that have sworn allegiance to I.A.T.S.E.; in the projection booths of the nation's theatres, I.A.T.S.E. rules the roost. Should Tsar Browne and his lieutenant, William Bioff, call their men out on strike, practically the entire business of making and showing motion pictures could be brought to a jolting halt.

The price to unions of affiliation with I.A.T.S.E. has been high. Unions have lost not only autonomy but control of $750,000 in dues and assessments since Tsar Browne took over the purse strings in December 1935. Credited to the four largest unions in the I.A.T.S.E. combine is a paltry balance of $140,000. Of the remaining $610,000 collected, $315,000 has gone for "general administration expenses." Some members would like to know about the rest.

Early last month California's legislative committee on capital and labor turned to the I.A.T.S.E situation, armed with disturbing information from chubby-faced liberal Labor Attorney Carey McWilliams. Attorney McWilliams had filed a suit, on behalf of two fired I.A.T.S.E. men, for an accounting of I.A.T.S.E. collections and expenditures.

Putting two and two together and making news, Attorney McWilliams had reported to the committee that in Tsar Browne's Chicago bailiwick, newspapers reporting two 1935 labor murders had referred to Bioff and one Montana as "South Side gunmen wanted for questioning" and as "bodyguards for George E. Browne." When the hearings got under way, however, the committee found this stuff a little too hot to handle, and, after a week of inquiry into I.A.T.S.E.'s Hollywood methods, the investigation was adjourned. If Attorney McWilliams can authenticate his allegations, the inquiry will be resumed.

Highlights:

Fat, boastful William Bioff, who lives at pseudo-swank Malibu Beach, drives a sleek Fierce-Arrow, frequents hotspots on his $110 a week, $12 a day expenses, bragged that I.A.T.S.E. had cost film producers $6,000,000 a year. Said Bioff: "Communist groups . . . are responsible for charges . . . under investigation here." The audience booed. "There they are," he said, "they're all Communists."

I.A.T.S.E.-minded J. W. Buzzell, executive secretary of Los Angeles Central Labor Council, suggested the investigators be investigated for C.I.O. logrolling.

Silvery-haired former Studio Carpenter Edward W. Wentworth, who had bucked I.A.T.S.E. and lost, gave as "an old man's opinion," that "you've no more chance of doing any good in this situation than a snowball in hell."

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