Despite film’s lucrativeness, however, the situation for Hollywood workers worsened with the war’s end. A labor surplus developed as the defense industry began laying off workers and as veterans returned from the war in search of jobs. Management thus had created a ready-made pool of scabs eager to violate CSU picket lines in order to gain a foothold in this glamorous industry.48 By the time of the 1946 lockout wily studio executives had stashed away 130 unreleased films and “with a minimum number of pictures in production, the studios apparently were not caught napping” by CSU’s decision to reject management’s final, draconian offer.49