October 5 Hollywood’s Black Friday

On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. 

That was a day known as in Hollywood “Black Friday.” 

After World War II, the movie industry began to rake in profits. 

But they did not pass those on to their employees.

10,000 members of the Conference of Studio Unions, were on strike. 

They were part of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. 

They were also in a jurisdictional battle with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, over who should represent set decorators.

The strike wore on for half a year.   

The studios had more than 100 films backlogged, and were able to wait out the strikers. 

But as the strike continued, and the studios remained silent, pressure mounted.  

Despite the tensions between the two unions, thousands of IATSE members refused to cross the picket lines.

On “Black Friday” the strikers decided to concentrate their efforts at the Warner Brothers Studio gate.

300 picketers gathered to hold the line.  

Scabs hired by Warner Brothers tried to drive through the worker’s pickets lines to the studio.  

Variety accounted what happened next.  “Strikers deployed from their barricades, halted the non-strikers and rolled three automobiles on their sides.  By noon reinforcements arrived from both sides.” 

Firemen were called in to turn their hoses on the striking workers. 

Warner Brothers security deployed tear gas. 

Common for the time accusations were hurled that the Conference of Studio Unions strikers were communists. 

As a result of the strike, the Conference of Studio Unions employees were assigned to other jobs in the studios. 

When they refused, they were locked out. 

The union never recovered. 

The violence at the Warner Brothers gate also helped to fuel the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act through congress, which eroded union protections.