The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

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10 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN January, 1954 Lab Employers Answered UEORUE ELVMX puis workers' case tor pay rises IN our November issue we summarised A.C.T.'s case to the F.L.A. for a revised Agreement. The main claim was for an overall increase of 30/ per week. Our case was based on : 1. Increases in the cost of living since July 1951 when the last Agreement was signed. 2. Increased productivity in film laboratories. 3. Increased prosperity of the employers as disclosed in their published accounts. There have now been two meetings with the employers. At the first they completely rejected A.C.T.'s proposals on the grounds that : 1. The average earnings of laboratory employees are in excess of earnings in other manufacturing industries. 2. Rates of pay in laboratories have kept pace with increases in the cost of living. 3. A.C.T. laboratory members have fared better than A.C.T. members in film production. 4. A.C.T.'s statement re productivity is most inaccurate and misleading conclusions have been drawn because the declining purchasing power of the pound has been ignored. 5. Gross or trading profits are not. a reliable indication of profitability and whatever Balance Sheets may indicate to the contrary there is not increasing prosperity in film laboratories. A.C.T.'s representatives refused to accept this summary rejection of their claim and asked the F.L.A. to think again. This they promised to do and a second meeting was held. On this occasion the employers did at least try to do what they had failed to do before, namely : answer the detailed case submitted by the A.C.T. Their argument was that the function of profits did not include paying increased wages to workers, their main job was to provide new machines, new processes and new techniques. The money available to meet A.C.T.'s case, even if its reasoning were accepted, was in any case not gross earnings but the balance remaining after all other charges and disbursements. The first point members will notice is that the employers have not sought to deny the facts behind a single argument put forward by A.C.T. At the best, they have tried to shift the ground upon which discussions should take place. The employers have not denied that their combined gross profit is approximately £1A million per year. They have not denied, indeed they could not deny, the statement as to earnings of their companies as extracted from published accounts and balance sheets. They have not denied the very high dividends paid to shareholders. In fact, it seemed clear to our negotiators, and it was more or less hinted at by one of the F.L.A. representatives, that what had upset the employers was not so much A.C.T.'s application as the fact that it had been based upon the ability of the employers to meet the claim with the resultant disclosures of their profitability, hitherto, with one exception, a closely guarded secret. As reported elsewhere, the employers' attitude has now been discussed by the General Council, the Executive Committee and the Laboratory Commit tee. A mass meeting of laboratory members is being called to which we shall recommend a refusal to accept the employers' rejection of our claim and seek authority for pressure to be exercised on them in order to get a satisfactory settlement. Meanwhile, members may wish to have the following comments on the five main points made by the employers : 1. The claim that laboratory workers are better paid than any other worker in industry is such palpable nonsense that it need hardly be pursued. The employers have made their case, such as it is, by extracting from Ministry of Labour returns figures for industries as a whole and comparing them with a group of specialised workers in a section of one industry. We cannot accept comparisons of earnings as valid without sharp definition as to like with like and the nature of the job. Our members are skilled, handling expensive machinery and handling it fast for a profitable market but even if what the employers claim were true, so what? Using the employers' figures, the value of our member's work to his employer is on the average of £21 10s. Od. per week of which the employer keeps £10 for himself as profit and the worker only receives £11 8s. Od. Our simple case is that the division of the yield is unjust and our members arc entitled to a greater share. In any case, as to the argument that our rates of pay must be considered in relation to rates and conditions in other industries this is, of course, either a truism expressed more decently by the Church when it lays down that we are all God's children (in which case it applies to Managing Directors and shareholders as well as laboratory workers and engineers) or it means that the laboratory employers are encouraging the engineers, and so on, to press for their 15 per cent increase. 2. As to the employers' contention that laboratory workers' earnings have kept pace with the cost of living, the simple answer is to ask the laboratory members' wives. What the employers say is absolute nonsense, as they must know. In fact, they have only been able to try to establish their case by saying that we should have started off not with the date our last Agreement was signed but earlier! Part of their case is that whilst the cost of certain items of food has risen owing to the removal of subsidies some of our members have benefited by the income tax reductions as a result of the last Budget. As everyone knows, workers who earn £10 per week have had little benefit from tax reductions but in any case, we cannot accept the arithmetic which puts the effect of tax policy against food and living costs, otherwise we should start arguing as to whether the National Debt was necessary or armaments or all sorts of things. We repeat our figures, which were taken from official sources, that comparing the retail price index for July 1951 with August 1953 and taking July 1951 as 100 the index for food has risen to 119J. This increase is not adequately compensated by the sliding scale arrange