The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003 Page: 539
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Black Texans and Theater Craft Unionism
constituted discrimination and violated the mandates of the FEPC. The
fact that the IATSE did not appear on the government's list of "essential
industries" contributed greatly to the FEPC's failure to abolish wage dis-
crimination within the union.2
Postwar technological advances thrust the motion picture industry and
the union into yet another realm of complicated circumstances. Eco-
nomic pressures brought on by the advent of television and the resulting
trend of declining employment in the movie industry created new ten-
sions. The formative years for television became a near-desperate period
for the theater industry, which lost many of its patrons while IATSE work-
ers saw many in their ranks leave their jobs for newer and less restrictive
opportunities in television. By 1946 box office receipts had peaked, and
showed a steady decrease during the last years of the decade. Despite the
transition from movie and theater houses to television and a decline in
membership, white members of IATSE remained reluctant to relinquish
their elitist ideals and adopt more racially inclusive policies."s
The advent of television and the changing nature of the labor move-
ment had discernible effects on the movie industry's race relations. The
1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which regulated and limited inter-union collabo-
ration and the scope of labor strikes, represented an open attack on the
labor movement, declaring closed shops to be illegal and allowing em-
ployers to circumvent work stoppages by hiring replacement workers.
Conservative policymakers resented the enormous powers that New Deal-
ers had granted labor unions during the depression, and in the light of
post-World War II conditions-such as reduced industrial production
'" The FEPC was a government agency estabhshed by Franklin Roosevelt to investigate discrim-
ination among defense contractors during World War II. The FEPC began prehmmary investiga-
tions of Texas defense industries in 1942 and continued until the closing of the Dallas FEPC of-
fice in 1945. This resulted in the discovery of pervasive discrimination against black workers
throughout Texas. Generally, the FEPC experienced more difficulties in industries where a lower
percentage of workers were blacks and achieved greater successes in workplaces where blacks
comprised a significant portion of the worker population. Final Disposition Report, Feb. 14, 1944
(quotation), IATSE file, FEPC Records; Final Disposition Report, Nov. 5, 1943, ibid.; "Statement
of Position By Local No. 279-A," file # 301-9749, FMCS; Castafieda to Farb, Oct 6, 1943, IATSE
file, FEPC Records; Castafieda to Barraco, Oct 6, 1943, ibid.; Castafieda to Lewis, Oct. 12, 1943,
ibid. Also see Ernest Obadele-Starks, "The Road to Jericho: Black Workers, the Fair Employment
Practice Commission, and the Struggle for Racial Equality in the Upper Texas Gulf Coast,
1941-1947" (Ph.D. diss, University of Houston, 1996); Emlho Zamora "The Failed Promise of
Wartime Opportunity for Mexicans in the Texas Oil Industry," Southwestern Hzstorical Quarterly, 95
(Jan., 1992), 323-350. For specific discussions on the origins and development of the FEPC, see
Merl Reed, Seedtzme for the Cizvl Rights Movement: The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), Louis C Kesselman, The Social Politics of the
FEPC: A Study an Reform Pressure Movements (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948),
Louis Ruchames, Race, Jobs and Polztzcs: The Story of FEPC (New York: Columbia University Press,
1953); Herbert Garfinkel, When Negroes March: The Organzzatzonal Polztzcs of FEPC (Glencoe, Ill.:
Atheneum Press, 1959).
' Denise Hartsough, "Film Union Meets Television: IA Organizing Efforts, 1947-1952," Labor
History, 33 (Summer, 1992), 357-371; Tinmo Balio (ed.), The American Flm Industry (rev. ed.; Madi-
son: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 401.200oo3
539
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003, periodical, 2003; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101223/m1/617/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.