Editing Disney animators' strike (section)

==History==
===Background===
In the 1930s, a rise of labor unions took place in Hollywood in response to the [[Great Depression]] and subsequent mistreatment of employees by studios. Among these unions was the [[Screen Cartoonist's Guild]] (SCG), which formed in 1938 after the first [[Strike action|strike]] at an animation studio occurred, the [[1937 Fleischer Studios strike]]. By 1941, SCG president [[Herbert Sorrell]] had secured contracts with every major cartoon studio except Disney and [[Warner Bros. Cartoons|Leon Schlesinger Productions]]. [[Leon Schlesinger|Schlesinger]] gave in to the SCG's requests to sign a contract after his own employees went on strike, but upon signing reportedly asked, "What about Disney?"<ref name=video>{{Cite video
  | people = [[Jean-Pierre Isbouts|Isbouts, Jean-Pierre]] (Director)
  | title = [[Walt: The Man Behind the Myth]]
  | medium = Television documentary film
  | publisher = [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]/Walt Disney Home Video
  | date = 2001}}</ref>

Disney's animators had the best pay and working conditions in the industry, but were discontented.<ref name=book>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Bob|title=WALT DISNEY: AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL|publisher=Disney Editions|isbn=0-7868-6027-8|year=1994}}</ref> Originally, 20 percent of the profits from short cartoons went toward employee bonuses, but Disney eventually suspended this practice.<ref name="Barrier, Michael 1999">Barrier, Michael, ''Hollywood Cartoons'' (1999), Oxford University Press, UK</ref> Disney's 1937 animated film ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs]]'' was a financial success, allowing Disney to construct a new, larger studio in [[Burbank, California]],<ref name=PBS>{{Cite video
  | people = Grimberg, Sharon (producer)
  | title = [[American Experience]], Walt Disney- Part One
  | medium = Television documentary film
  | publisher = [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]
  | date = 2015}}</ref> financed by borrowing.<ref name=prescod>{{cite web |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/05/disney-workers-animators-cartoonists-artists-strike-picket-1941-guild-scg-sorrell-babbitt |title=80 Years Ago Today, Disney Animation Workers Went on Strike |last=Prescod |first=Paul |date=29 May 2021 |website=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |access-date=4 June 2021}}</ref> At the Burbank studio, a rigid hierarchy system was enforced where employee benefits such as access to the restaurant, gymnasium, and steam room were limited to the studio's head writers and animators, who also received larger and more comfortable offices. Individual departments were segregated into buildings and heavily policed by administrators.

The box-office failures of ''[[Pinocchio (1940 film)|Pinocchio]]'' and ''[[Fantasia (1940 film)|Fantasia]]'' in 1940 forced Disney to make layoffs, although Disney rarely involved himself in the hiring and firing process with those who were not atop the pay chain. The studio's pay structure was very disorganized, with some high-ranking animators earning as much as $300 a week, while other employees made as little as $12. According to then-Disney animator [[Willis Pyle]], "there was no rhyme or reason as to the way the guys were paid. You might be sitting next to a guy doing the same thing as you and you might be getting $20 a week more or less than him". Staff were also forced to put their name to documents which stated that they worked a forty hour week, while their actual hours were much longer. In addition there was resentment at Walt Disney taking credit for their work, and employees wished to receive [[Motion picture credits|on-screen credit]] for their art.<ref name=prescod />

===Labor action===
The SCG and Sorrell started meeting on a regular basis at the [[Hollywood Hotel]] from the start of 1941 to hear Disney workers' grievances and plan a unionization effort.<ref name=prescod /> Many animators, including [[Art Babbitt]], grew dissatisfied and joined the SCG. Babbitt was one of Disney's best-paid animators, though he was sympathetic to low-ranking employees and openly disliked Disney.<ref name=PBS/> Babbitt had previously been a senior official in the Disney [[company union]], the Federation of Screen Cartoonists, but had become frustrated due to being unable to effect change in that position.<ref name=prescod /> Disney saw no problem with the structure, believing it was his studio to run and that his employees should be grateful to him for providing the new studio space.<ref name=PBS/>

Sorrell, along with Babbitt and [[Bill Littlejohn]],<ref name=libcom.org>{{cite web
|url=https://libcom.org/history/1941-disney-cartoonists-strike
 |title=The Disney cartoonists strike, 1941
 |last=Lowry
 |first=Sam
 |date=Nov 1, 2006
 |website=libcom.org
 |access-date=June 23, 2018}}</ref> approached Disney and demanded he unionize his studio,<ref name=video/> but Disney refused. In February 1941, Disney gathered all 1,200 employees in his auditorium for a speech:

{{blockquote|In the 20 years I've spent in this business I've weathered many storms. It's been far from easy sailing. It required a great deal of work, struggle, determination, competence, faith, and above all unselfishness. Some people think we have a class distinction in the place. They wonder why some people get better seats in the theatre than others. They wonder why some men get spaces in the parking lot and others don't. I have always felt, and always will feel that the men that contribute most to the organization should, out of respect alone, enjoy some privileges. My first recommendation to the lot of you is this; put your own house in order, you can't accomplish a damn thing by sitting around and waiting to be told everything. If you're not progressing as you should, instead of grumbling and growling, do something about it.<ref name=PBS/>}}

The assembly was poorly received, and more employees joined the SCG. Tensions between Disney and Babbitt reached a peak when Disney began to see Babbitt as having personally betrayed him by becoming a union leader.<ref name=PBS/> Disney fired Babbitt along with 16 other employees who were members of the SCG.

===Strike===
The next day, on May 29, more than 200 members of the studio staff went on strike, during the production of the 1941 film ''[[Dumbo]]'', against the advice of Sorrell, who wanted more time to organize workers before striking.<ref name=prescod /> Other studios' animators, such as those from Schlesinger, offered their support during the strike. Disney retaliated by depicting some of the striking employees in caricature in ''Dumbo'' as antagonistic circus clowns, and on one occasion even attempted to "attack" a picketing Babbitt, but was stopped by studio guards.<ref name=libcom.org/>{{Unreliable source?|date=November 2022}} In turn, the strikers maintained a carnival-esque atmosphere on the picket line, using humor and artistic skills in producing signs, and at one stage carrying a mock guillotine in a march and using it to behead a mannequin of Walt Disney. They also received support from other unions, with unionized staff at [[Technicolor SA|Technicolor]], Williams and [[Pathé Exchange|Pathé]] refusing to process Disney films, and consumer advocacy group the [[League of Women Shoppers]] picketed theaters exhibiting them. The Disney strikers also extended solidarity to strikes in other sectors, such as producing signs for a [[United Auto Workers]] strike at [[North American Aviation]] in Los Angeles.<ref name=prescod />

The strike was resolved when the [[National Labor Relations Board]] asked Disney to sign a union contract and he agreed. Disney was returning from a goodwill tour of Latin America to produce animated films as part of the [[Good Neighbor policy]], allowing tensions to cool in his absence - although the SCG kept up pressure in the run-up to Disney's departure: the union's business agent Bill Pomerance obtained details of union leaders in the cities that were on Disney's itinerary via the [[National Maritime Union]]. He then contacted the [[United States Department of State|State Department]] to inform them that pickets of Disney and his films were being organized in South America, arguing that "the Disney company (should) comply with American standards of fair treatment of labor" as a condition of Walt Disney being allowed to represent the United States as a goodwill ambassador. As a result the [[U.S. Conciliation Service]] brought both sides together in talks in Washington DC: an agreement was struck, which included the reinstatement of employees fired before the strike, equalization of pay, a clearer salary structure and a grievance procedure.<ref name=prescod />