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February 1955
CINE TECHNICIAN
27
Bert Craik sums up PAST GAINS and future PROSPECTS on the eve of A.C.T.'s ANNUAL MEET
DAY your Union subs, son, the rent can wait! " -1 ... In terms of value for money the " old man" was right! In looking back over the year most A.C.T. members have made a profit out of their investment in the Union. Feature members are 11/ per week better off. Short and documentary members have received increases varying between 16s. 2d. and £1 16s. 2d., and a new Shorts Agreement based on the Feature Agreement is just round the corner. There is also a marked change in the attitude of Shorts members: they will no longer be " fobbed off " with the economic bogey. The Eady Fund has changed all that; so has commercial television.
Laboratory members have had a good year too, and can be proud of the practical results brought about by unity on the job. You all know of the long and bitter dispute; of the brilliant research work enabling us to disclose laboratory profits; and the financial strain on the Union during the strike and lock-out. But the members stood firm. They had a just case and a case worth fighting for. We can therefore look back with pride at the military precision with which the lab. members organised themselves during the dispute— the Bulletins giving day-to-day information; the picket lines; the
marches; the posters; the loudspeaker vans and the mass meetings. This was trade unionism at its best when faced with a challenge.
Results of the campaign included wage increases, for General and Technical Grades of from 4s. to 21s. 6d. per week; for Clerical Grades of from 4s. to 26s. per week, paid retrospectively in both cases to the 14th June, 1954 — this, after the employers had refused to make any offer at all; the consolidation of the 30s. cost of living bonus in the basic rate (20s. in the case of newcomers and trainees); an extra week's holiday for laboratory employees with ten years' or more continuous service with one employer; meal allowances for transport drivers of Is. 6d. towards the cost of the first main meal, and Is. towards any subsequent meal which drivers have to take whilst out on a job when canteen services are not available; inclusion of new grades in the Agreement; and a reduced working week — the hours at Technicolor have been reduced from 45 to 44 without loss of earnings. Employers and ourselves have to consider ways and means of further reducing working hours, over a period, without loss of output.
OUMMING up, we can therefore say that whilst it ^ has been a busy and difficult year it has also been a successful one.
What of the future? It seems that some masterplan has been worked out to restrict normal film production to four studios, i.e., Pinewood, Ealing, A.B.P.C. and Shepperton — the rest look as though they will be used mainly for television production. We get a clearer understanding of this plan when we link it to the Eady Fund. The object of the Fund was to encourage British film production. What, in fact, it does is financially to help those making films in Britain, whilst at the same time acting as a restricting influence on the output of British films.
Commercial television film production is really getting into its stride and it looks as though it will act as a lifesaver to those laboratories which have not yet switched over to colour processing. As a result of this additional type of film production there is almost sure to be a shortage of technicians and a scramble for staff. Accordingly, the setting
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Land on forthcoming Annual General Meeting at Hudson Bay Co.'s Beaver Hall, Garlic Lane