The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

May 1954 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 93 quickie. Also of particular importance to trade unionists was the insertion into the Act of a Fair Wages Clause which obliged producers to pay trade union rates and conditions. This Clause, incidentally, was rejected initially by the House of Commons but as a result of Lord Strabolgi's persistence in the House of Lords it was reintroduced and became one of the few, if not the only, piece of Trade Union legislation to initiate from that august assembly. It was with the help of this Fair Wages Clause that many producers for the first time were persuaded both to recognise trade unions and negotiate agreements with them. Not so long afterwards another crisis developed when upon the outbreak of war the Government came out with a bald announcement that the Cinematograph Films Act was to be suspended and British film production was to cease. And cease it did. Not only were studio technicians affected but also laboratory employees and although it appeared likely that there might be some official films, there was nothing really certain about even this. Those first few months of the war became one long trail of A.C.T. officials with, of course, officials from other unions and film bodies (incidentally, on these matters we had a complete united front with the producers) to anybody and everybody of influence. We marched around all carrying our cardboard gas mask containers (rumour has it that some technicians used them for sandwiches rather than for holding the official contents) and I have a particularly vivid memory of Anthony Asquith and myself meeting Lord Beaverbrook, from whom we sought and obtained his support as a former Minister of Information. Eventually all this pressure succeeded and the magnificent job both officially and in the entertainment field done by British films is now history. The war proved what A.C.T. had always been saying, that there was no need to employ large numbers of foreign technicians to show us how to do our job. Unaided and, as the war developed, despite the blitz and obsolete equipment, we turned out official films and entertainment films which were second-to-none in the world. A.C.T. used this record of our members during its continued attempts to persuade the Newsreel Association to negotiate an agreement. When they had the temerity to resist the Insurance Clauses proposed on the grounds that film technicians' work was not dangerous, we submitted to the Arbitrator the film Cameramen at War as evidence in support of our claim. This was the first time a film had been submitted as evidence in an industrial dispute and the result was a 100 per cent award on that particular matter. More than one institution which is now accepted can be traced back to the initial impetus of A.C.T. campaigning. Nineteen years ago we first made the demand for an Apprenticeship Scheme for the film industry. Soon afterwards we advocated a Films Bank, which after the war emerged in the form of the National Film Finance Corporation. We then persuaded the Government to make provision for such a Corporation to finance film companies of a non-profit making character, which paved the way for the formation of A.C.T. Films. This too is blazing the trail as there is no other trade union which has set up an organisation to employ its own members in the field in which its members earn their living and which in fact competes with commercial employers. One of our disappointments has been the failure to get active co-operation between technicians internationally. We have tried and at times have had some success, but we are as far away today from an international federation of film technicians as we were at the outset. Matters have not been helped by the split in the world trade union movement which leaves film technicians in some countries attached to an international organisation which is not on speaking terms with the organisation to which film technicians in other countries are attached. The best that can be said is that we have friendly contacts with most other countries. Let it be hoped that in the near future we can play our part in helping to weld together, however difficult, an international organisation which will bring together the film technicians of the world. From the international to the parochial. On the lighter side, but of prime importance to those concerned, after some of our newsreel colleagues who were having trouble in getting their " swindle sheets " approved (an industrial disease afflicting all journalists) we negotiated an official letter from the Taxi Cab Section of the T. & G.W.U. putting on record that it was illegal for taxi men to give official receipts for their fares. My own final reminiscent note is that it is a credit to all concerned that A.C.T. have not only been able to do so much in twenty-one years but it has been able, after a number of previous failures, to bring together into one organisation all those people with many outward diverse interests who are intrinsically part and parcel of the British film production industry. This is one of the secrets of our successes and if we are as effective in our next twenty-one years as we have been in our first then not only those who make British films but the industry as a whole will be the richer for it.