Film and TV Technician (1957)

November 1957 FILM & TV TECHNICIAN Ths Museum of Mod— Art tltlAtl A.C.T.T's STRUGGLE WITH SCOTTISH TELEVISION OUR experience in Scottish Television shows how Trade Unions can never take anything for granted. Here we are having just signed an agreement with the Programme Contractors Association and having obtained some two years back a Fair Wages Clause in the Television Act. In theory, therefore, all is set without fear, trouble or strife, for any technician employed in commercial television to receive the rate for the job and work under Trade Union conditions. But what happens in Glasgow? We make the appropriate initial approaches to the management drawing attention to our existence and referring to the Agreement existing to cover our members. We receive a polite letter back from Roy Thomson, the proprietor himself, implying all will be well and as soon as the official opening is off his company's hands they will meet us in London to negotiate the agreement. Which is fair enough. Members Incensed That was in August. We wait, and nothing happens. So after the station has been on the air about six weeks an organiser goes up to Glasgow and is informed by the Managing Director that it will be impossible to meet us for three or four weeks. He hedged on the immediate rectification of abuses which it was known existed. Our members had other views. They were incensed at the management's attitude, seeing they were working between sixty and seventy hours a week without a penny overtime, even the sickness and suchlike clauses of the National Agreement were not being observed, and rates were in many cases several hundred pounds a year below what they should have been. Some technicians actually putting shows on the air were being paid as little as £6 and £8 a week — and that for a 60-70 hour week. So Organiser Paddy Leach went back to the Managing Director and said we could only agree to a delayed meeting if some agreement could be reached on back dating and payment for overtime. The company would not agree to this. The following day, Thursday, October 3rd, our members unanimously passed a resolution that unless they received satisfactory assurances in connection with the national agreement, including commencement of negotiations within a week, immediate implementation of a 44-hour week with overtime By the GENERAL SECRETARY payments thereafter, and operation of the proper rates from the date of this first meeting, they would take the appropriate industrial action from 6 p.m. the following Tuesday, October 8th. Despite Provocation This led to meetings in London, first with Bert Craik and then, on Monday, the day before zero hour, between Paddy Leach and myself and Mr. J. A. Jelly, the General Manager of Scottish Television. Despite the provocation to dig in on the strict letter of the law, we met the company on the point which, admittedly, must be causing them some difficulty : namely the number of trainees they have had to employ at the outset. Taking care of this in Clause 2, we signed the following agreement : 1. That as from the 1th October, 1957, all the Clauses of the Agreement between members of the Programme Contractors Association and the Association of Cinematograph Television and allied Technicians shall be operated with the exception of Clause 29 as provided hereunder. 2. That there shall be immediate discussions between the company and the union to vary for an agreed period of time, if it should be found necessary, the maximum number of trainees which may be employed. 3. The company agree to observe the provisions of the Schedule to the Agreement with payment as from the next pay-day. llth October, 1957, and to this end discussionsshall commence immediately between the company and the union to agree an Assimilation Schedule. 4. With reference to the dates of observance of the above clauses it is understood that these refer to the commencement of liability of the company and the actual payment shall be made to the members of the union as soon as reasonably practicable. Agreement Repudiated All was well at last, we thought. But whilst Paddy Leach was travelling up to Scotland to report back to our members, I got a phone call from the Press at Harrogate, where I had travelled to attend a conference for A.C.T.T., in which I was told that Mr. Thomson had repudiated the agreement signed by his General Manager. So Paddy had to start all over again and make clear to the company that unless the agreement stood our members' resolution became operative and Scottish Television would go off the air, as originally decided. We had the full support of the other two unions organising in Scottish Television and there was no doubt that our action would be completely effective. The company, therefore, had second thoughts and decided to recognise the agreement they had signed. Two issues ago we reviewed in film & tv technician a publication by the Trades Union Congress on the Tolpuddle Martyrs. We don't appear to have travelled far in 120 years, do we? Congratulations to our Scottish members on their magnificent stand. At least they haven't been sentenced to seven years' transportation for a "crime" not all that dissimilar from their Trade Union pioneers in Dorchester! FILM & TV TECHNICIAN Editor: MARTIN CHISHOLM Editorial Office: 2 Soho Square, VV.l Telephone: GERrard 8506 Advertisement Office: 5 and 6 Red Lion Sq., W.C.I Telephone: HOLborn 4972