The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

November, 1953 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 149 last year were £96,000 and during the past nine years shareholders have received in dividends 307J per cent. Associated British Pathe is a combination of Newsreel, Shorts and Laboratory interests. It is not clear as to how much of the Company's prosperity is due to each of these interests or to distribution but the general overall picture is indeed very healthy. The company's total profit last year was £156,000 and the ordinary dividend was at the rate of over 600 per cent. This last figure is frankly misleading as the Company is clearly undercapitalised and a more accurate picture is reflected in the fact that having regard to the Company's total net assets, profits were about 40 per cent per annum, and have been so for some while. Olympic Kinematograph have paid dividends after tax totalling 60 per cent of their capital during the past three years together, during each of which their profit has been only a little short of £50,000. Technicolor is not only the biggest but the most prosperous of them all. During the past twelve years its total profits have been approximately £3y million and their profits last year were £863,000. The shareholders received a dividend of 20 per cent, which is the equivalent of 30 per cent on the previous year's capital, the shareholders having received a Capital Bonus of 50 per cent in July 1952. If we look at all these companies which are the major ones in the F.L.A. we will find that in the least affluent relatively, Olympic, each worker earned each week approximately £8 towards the profits of the Company whilst in the biggest and best, Technicolor, each worker contributed in work towards the profits of the Company the equivalent of approximately £15 per week. During the last trading year the five companies, controlling six laboratories quoted, had between them a trading profit of £1,350,000, and allowing for the eleven smaller companies and non-federated firms whose figures are not available it could be reasonably estimated that the profits of film laboratories as a whole are at the rate of approximately £1J million per year. A.C.T.'s claim would at the most cost the companies a sum equivalent to onesixth of this total trading profit. We contend that such a claim is both reasonable and justified. Feature Members' Demands A GENERAL Meeting of Feature members on the -^* 23rd October endorsed proposals which will form the basis of an application to the B.F.P.A. Since 1947, when the B.F.P.A. Agreement was signed, there has been little improvement in the position of our members despite the very substantial increases in the cost of living since then. In April 1952 some of our members received 18/4 per week increase and in November 1952 a smaller number still received 11/ per week. Other members have received nothing at all. We think it is now time to make a determined effort to put this matter right and attend to other anomalies. An application for this purpose will therefore be made through the Technical Panel of the Joint Industrial Council. Before preparing these proposals the Feature Branch issued a Questionnaire to its members to obtain from them, in confidence, the details of their TURN TO PAGE 151. A.C.T.'s Lab members mass to demand Gaumont, Hammersmith wage rise, at