The Evening Star (July 2, 1946)
Several injured as violence flares on movie picket lines
HOLLYWOOD (AP) – Mass violence flared today at two major studios as pickets clashed with police escorting non-striking workers through studio gates.
First reports said several persons were felled in clashes at Warner Brothers’ studio in Burbank and at MGM studio in Culver City.
At Universal studio, Marvin H. Hoffman, 41, a picket of the striking Conference of Studio Unions (AFL) was stabbed in a clash with non-strikers and was taken to the county general hospital. Sherman B. Osmond, 34, identified by police as a member of a non-striking union, was arrested in connecting with the affray.
At Warners, non-strikers crashed through a massed picket line with the aid of club-swinging Burbank city policemen. The police opened a way through the crowd of pickets after several of the latter had been knocked to the ground.
John Reynolds, 22, a picket, was subdued by police when he resisted arrest.
At MGM, Anthony Schiavone, 31, a carpenter employed at another studio, was arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace after he was declared to have knocked down and broken a news photographer’s camera. Schiavone was convicted of disturbance and assault in connection with last year’s long movie strike.
Meanwhile, other AFL unions refused to take immediate action on a CSU-proposed resolution for unified support of the strikers.
The Los Angeles Central Labor Council last night voted to refer the question to the council’s executive board.
The Screen Actors’ Guild issued a statement saying the CSU strike violated AFL regulations. Members were told the guild would respect its contracts with the studio, but would not ask actors to cross picket lines where violence is threatened.
After a brief clash yesterday at the Universal gates sent a CSU picket to a hospital with knife wounds, a member of the non-striking International Alliance of Theatrical Employees (AFL) was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.