The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed by Hollywood's silent-film community just as the silent film itself was about to pass from the scene. The announced goals of the Academy were "to develop harmony and adjust differences and grievances within the industry,... promote the good repute of the profession and protect it from outside attack, and... aid in the advancement of the motion picture in all its arts and sciences."1 Today the Academy is best known for its annual awards ceremony, but in its initial months it was far more concerned with the threat to industrial "harmony" posed by incipient unionization.
On 29 November 1926 the major producers had finally signed the Studio Basic Agreement, which codified their relationship to organized stagehands, carpenters, electricians, painters, and musicians. Prior to this date jurisdictional quarrels among competing unions had weakened and divided the organized labor force, but when the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Motion Picture Machine Operators was finally able to establish its jurisdiction over studio craft workers, industry leaders were forced to capitulate. Hollywood's moment as a non-union haven was over. 2
The "talent," however, was still unorganized. Honorary societies such as the Screen Writers' Guild of the Authors' League of America or the American Society of Cinematographers did not function as unions.
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