Weeks after this contretemps involving redwood workers, “three masked men broke into the strike headquarters of the printing trade unions…. Don Steep, the lone occupant at the time was said to have been beaten into a state of unconsciousness and securely tied.” The office was wrecked. After that an oil workers’ strike reached “violent heights.” World War II veterans—an increasingly conservative force—formed the “Yardbird Veterans’ Political Association” and offered to recruit scabs. A GI trucking company was formed to cross picket lines that Teamsters would not violate. In turn, when the CIO Brewers Union went on strike, “truckloads of scabs, herded by Los Angeles police and by the Teamsters, daily rushed the… workers’ picket line.” Teamsters clashed with electrical workers; machinists crossed swords with carpenters; the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen fought the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electrical Railway, and Motor Coach Employees; the welders battled the machinists. The war’s end ushered in a disordered, often violent scene in labor—frequently involving the kind of jurisdictional disputes that had become de rigueur in Hollywood; this pandemonium was not conducive to trade union unity.48

Ralph Peckham, a CSU member, expressed the sentiments of many when he exclaimed, “I’m tired of dealing with lawyers. I want to go back to painting.”163 Happily, it was reported, the “first break in the solidarity of the defendants” came as five decided to plead guilty and were fined a meager $25 each. This ruling was an invitation to break ranks with CSU—and the invitation was accepted. For those not interested, the city offered another disincentive: all defendants had to attend all court sessions, including the picking of a jury. This decision effectively demobilized CSU, which had to shift from picketing to sitting in uncomfortable, makeshift courtrooms jammed with hundreds.164

But a month later he had retreated swiftly. In late November 1947 the moguls, through Johnston’s trade association, announced that they would suspend the screenwriters and directors who came to be called the Hollywood Ten until they declared “under oath” that they were not Reds; the industry, it was reported, would “not knowingly employ a Communist.”185 There was dissent at first. John Huston, George Stevens, John Ford, William Wyler, and other leading directors told Speaker of the House Joseph Martin and the HUAC chairman that they were “opposed to communism” but wanted “guarantees of the Constitution,” too.186 But with the decimation of CSU and its progressive voice, picking off writers, directors, and actors became easier. The blacklist had begun.

The practice was endorsed quickly by IATSE, the Teamsters, and most of the Hollywood unions. It was enforced, too. This exclusionary practice, contrary to popular opinion, did not affect writers, directors and actors alone.187

By December 1948 “the book finally was closed” on the lockout, with the levying of fines totaling $9,650 on thirty-two of the picketers and jail sentences for five others. In October 1949 the “last victim” of the lockout, Emil Freed—a Communist—was released after serving a one-year jail term; he had been selling party newspapers across the street from the picket lines when arrested. By November 1950 there was “no picketline for the first time in almost five years: the United Brotherhood of Carpenters has called off the token picket line it had maintained ever since the so-called jurisdictional fight that started in 1946.”217 Toward the end, Edmond DePatie, a vice president at Warner Bros., recalled that many were feeling sorry for CSU: at times there was only a solitary picket marching resolutely in front of the studio.218