The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

150 CINE TECHNICIAN October 1956 In tribute to the Laboratory Members of A.C.T.T. we tell here the story of the birth and growth of the Laboratory Section TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF STRUGGLE AND ACHIEVEMENT THE minutes of the General Council Meeting for October 15th, 1935, cover three handwritten quarto pages on paper now yellowing with the years for those were the days before A.C.T.T. rose to typewriters with two-colour ribbons which allowed minutes to be set out legibly in ' glorious Technicolor '. Tucked away on the second page of the record of that particular meeting is a two-and-a-half line paragraph which might only too easily be overlooked by anyone scanning the Union's past records in search of the turning-points in its history. It reads: " Report of Laboratory Meeting. The Secretary gave a report of the meeting of laboratory workers at which it was resolved to form a special laboratory section of A.C.T." Words of Destiny Those twenty-eight words, sandwiched between items of routine business, constitute the official record of what the President, on another page of this issue, describes as one of the most important events in A.C.T.T. history, the welding together of the Laboratory Members into a section of their own which was destined to become the largest section in the Union. Between the drafting of that minute and the present day the Laboratory Members, with the backing of their fellow members in other branches of the film industry, have built up for themselves a record of struggle and solid achievement of which any Trade Unionist would have every right to be proud. In this article we shall try to give some of the highlights of that struggle and of those achievements. For the young worker coming fresh into a modern laboratory it must be difficult if not almost impossible to imagine what conditions were like in those early days before A.C.T.T. took up the fight for their improvement. Bert Craik, who was himself a laboratory worker in those dark, far-off days, has summed them up in one word, "appalling". Printing rooms, for instance, were cramped and over-heated, with blankets hanging from the roof with their lower ends in buckets of water, a primitive device to cut down the effects of static electricity. Workers in the developing rooms had to wear gum-boots to protect them from the pools of chemical solutions lying everywhere over floors. As often as not their clothes were wringing wet with hypo and developer. Pay was appalling, too. On the first "appearance of LAB TOPICS, in the Journal of December 1936January 1937 we find the situation summarised as follows: " There are dozens of lab workers with ten to twenty years' experience earning £3 to £4 per week for highly skilled and responsible technical jobs. They feel justified in grousing when they see youngsters on the production side who, after a couple of years in the trade, are earning £5 and upwards per week, and have the chance of advancing still further." Available any time Miserable pay and appalling physical conditions were not the oniy grievances. Workers in the laboratories, again to quote Bert Craik, " were expected to be available for work any time of the day or night, Sunday to Saturday included, and overtime was not paid for." It was against this background that Trade Unionism grew up in the laboratories, slowly at first, and perhaps a little diffidently, for in those days there was little contact between one lab and another, workers began to join A.C.T. in twos and threes, and then gradually in larger groups. Those early recruiting days form a story in itself and some of it has been told by pioneer members elsewhere in this issue of the Journal (see page 153). Gradually the strength of the membership grew and with it there grew even closer contacts between shop and shop until, twenty-one years ago this month Laboratory Members felt sufficiently strong and self-confident to demand a section of their own. That was the first great landmark. First Great Victory It is impossible in a single article to tell the subsequent story in all its detail. One can only pick out the most outstanding events and achievements and so the story moves from the foundation of the Section in 1935 to the first great victory, the obtaining of the first laboratory agreement between A.C.T. and the Film Production Employers' Federation, one of the forerunners of the B.F.P.A., which then embraced laboratories as well as producers, which was signed on February 16th, 1939. That agreement marked a terrific advance. Here is just one example, picked at random from the Schedule of Minimum Wage Rates. The minimum laid down for printers was £4 per week. In comparison with the rates that A.C.T.T. has obtained since that time this may seem nothing very handsome. But the hard fact is that before the first Agreement was signed printers were getting often as little as thirty-five shillings for a week's work. One could go through the whole list of grades and find a number of similar increases. Then the Agreement contained something that had never been heard of in the Labs before, a clause compelling payment for overtime. There was another clause-, too, which restricted the length of continuous work to sixteen hours. Recent entrants to the industry on the laboratory side may. perhaps, not fully realise just how much they owe to the struggles of