The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

100 CINE TECHNICIAN The General Secretary Writes : July 1956 LABS HAVE AN OVERWHELMING COME months ago Head Office ^ received requests from laboratories that consideration should be given to an application to the Film Laboratory Association for wage increases and improved working conditions. As a result, the Laboratory Committee asked for and carefully considered detailed proposals. A report was then made to the General Council as to the lines of approach to the F.L.A. These proposals were approved by the General Council and unanimously endorsed at a mass meeting of the laboratory members on July 1st. A formal approach has now been made to the employers. When making their views known members had not forgotten what happened last time we made an application on their behalf. It led us into the bitterest struggle A.C.T. has ever experienced and only after a lockout by the employers and a strike by the remainder of the laboratory membership, followed by an official Government Enquiry, followed in turn by negotiations with the employers and arbitration on outstanding points, was a settlement achieved. The fact that the settlement was substantially in our favour underlines both the justification of our demands and the lengths to which the employers were willing to go in order to defeat them. It is a credit to our members that having regard to their experience on the last occasion their present demands arc so reasonable. But that does not necessarily mean that a settlement will be easy. Have They Learnt? On the grounds of the justice of our case we have overwhelming arguments but we do not yet know what the attitude of the employers will be or indeed whether they have learnt their lesson from the last occasion. We must also realise that apart from their attitude as owners of film laboratories they will be influenced by national policy generally. What is happening in the engineering industry and elsewhere is indicative of the toughening of the employers and CASE the toughening of the Government (the two invariably move hand in hand) towards legitimate trade union claims. Our demands will not therefore be considered as isolated ones in respect of 3,000 laboratory workers. Four Main Arguments There are four main arguments which can be put forward in favour of any wage claim: firstly, the rise in the cost of living since the last negotiations. It is, of course, true as the employers still speedily tell us, that our members have received some benefit on account of rises in the cost of living bonus over the past two years. It is equally true, as the wife of any of our members will tell them, that the 1/ a point rise in the official Government Index is only partial compensation for the increases in the cost of living over the past two years. The new Government Index which gives less emphasis to rises in the cost of food and more emphasis to rises in other items may well be introduced into the discussions by the employers. If so we on our part shall make clear that the 1/a point in the old Index must be replaced by about l/9d. a point for our members to have only equivalent benefits. We shall also argue strongly on the profitability of the laboratory owners' business. The spectre of bankruptcy which was held over our heads when we last made our claim has not materialised. Some laboratories are better off financially, whilst those whose profits have suffered some small setback must attribute these not to increased wages but to the shift of business in the industry mainly on account of the spread of colour processing which was previously a monopoly, to almost all laboratories. It is significant how the first argument of any group of employers is that they cannot afford to meet a wage claim and yet. when they are forced to meet it, their profits continue at a comfortably high level. The third argument is that owing to the introduction of new processes and new machinery our members individually are on the whole turning out more product each week and if output rises in this way the workers are entitled to their share of the benefits of it. Fourthly, of course, we do not accept the argument that the minimum sufficient to enable our members to live a more or less normal life is the sole yardstick under which wage claims should be judged. As long as profits are made out of our members' work they are never fully rewarded and indeed, as we in the film and television industries know particularly, it is not only morally just but to the benefit of our members and of members in similar industries which were once known as the luxury industries, that their standard of living should continue to rise to enable them to go to places of entertainment and purchase television sets without which there can be no demand for the product of our members' labour. Reduced Working Week The main heads under which we are going forward were listed in last month's Cine TECHNICIAN. After the £1 a week wage increase most emphasis was placed by speakers from the floor at the mass laboratory meeting on the demand for a reduction of the working week from 44 to 40 hours. As some of them stated, the arbitrators two years ago expressed the view that ways and means should be found to reduce the normal working hours over a period without loss of output. Nothing has been done on this point during the past two years. Now is clearly the time to do it. We believe it is quite practicable to reduce the working week as the arbitrators suggested, without losing output. The demand was also reopened for 100r; trade union membership, and members have made very clear that they are not going to tolerate a position whereby a handful of non-trade unionists, who