The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

72 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN May-June, 1953 Cine Profiles The fourth of 'Recorder's' short biographies of men and women active in A.C.T. JOE LAWRENCE has a number of trophies on his mantelpiece; they are not Oscars, but prizes won at golf, because from 1932-36 he was assistant professional to Percy Alliss and to another international, Ted Ray (not the comedian!) before entering the film industry. Joe has kept up his golf all the time, and among his nineteen prizes one picks out the Lord Grantley Cup which he won at Denham in 1950, the J. Arthur Rank Cup for 1950, and the John Mills Cup, also for 1950; as Joe remarks with unpretentious pride, " That was my best year." Of all the local courses he prefers Burnham Beeches most, because it is a really tough test of a man's golf — and that is typical of Joe's determined character. When he joined Kodak in 1938, he was up against the Bedeaux system, as well as the management's anti-Union policy; there were only twelve A.C.T. members in the factory then, but Joe set about helping Freddie Green to organise the workers: Harry Campbell, who worked with him in the platecoating department, was Joe's first recruit, and among his pioneering mates were the Wolfendale brothers, Charlie and Tommy (Jerry came to the firm later). Night classes in science and photography vied with golf to occupy his spare time, until the outbreak of the war saw him called up as a Territorial in the Royal Engineers. In North Africa and Normandy with an assault squadron of the 79th Armoured Division, Joe's same grit carried him through two blow-ups (at Noyes and Venlo). continuing in action until Christmas 1945. After demobbing a year later he returned to Kodak, and in 1947 he joined the Stills Processing Department at Denham Studios, where he once again resumed his Union activities, becoming departmental deputy to George Duff on the A.C.T. Committee. When the studios closed in 1950, he joined the staff of ten technicians working at the Cinecolor labs at Slough. This colour process was new to Britain then, and it needed men of Joe Lawrence's perseverance; it also needed trade union organisation, and together with Jock Gemmell, Jnr., he started to recruit the workers there, as the plant expanded. Today about a hundred are employed at Cinecolor (G.B.) Ltd., and there is a virile Works Committee, on to which representatives of each department are elected, as well as representatives of the E.T.U., the Chemical Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Engineering Union, under the chairmanship of George Puzey, of the A.E.U. By January 1951 the A.C.T. members had formed a Committee with Joe Lawrence as Shop Steward, and they pressed the managing director, Mr. Arthur J. Taylor, to apply the 1948 Technicolor Lab agreement to Cinecolor with effect from 1st June, 1951. But Mr. Taylor refused to sign, a mass meeting was called at lunch-time on the 14th Juno, and the members went on strike. Contrary to what Mr. Taylor expected, everybody walked out and did not return until settlement was reached some thirty hours later. A few months afterwards the new Technicolor agreement was made to apply to Cinecolor. These improved conditions were won by Joe's leadership and by the experience brought to the fight by other lab members like Dave Chambers (formerly at Denlabs), Bill Brown (ex-Kay, Finsbury Park), Joan Harrison (ex-Technicolor), among others who served on the Works Committee. Today our members at Cinecolor are far happier than three years ago. Due to threatening ill-health, Joe had to hand over the job of shop steward to Gillie Potter (again, not the comedian!) who is carrying on in the tradition that Joe established there. But on the General Council Ronnie Spillane, of Pathe, Wardour Street, had to resign due to poor health; as luck would have it, the runner-up at last year's A.G.M. elections among lab members was Joe Lawrence, so he stepped into Ronnie's place on the General Council for last year. CAMERA HIRE SERVICE NEWMAN SINCLAIR MODELS A, E and G with COMPREHENSIVE EQUIPMENT also NEWMAN HIGH SPEED Phone: GER 1365-6-7-8 S.F.L. LTD., 71 DEAN ST. LONDON, W.I