Kinematograph year book (1929)

Trade Organisations. 15! (d) To promote by all lawful means the adoption of fair working rules and customs of the trade. (e) To organise means to secure and if at any time considered necessary themselves supply means whereby a free and unrestricted circulation of films and other trade requisites may be secured for Members of the Association. (/) To resist by all lawful means the imposition by public authorities or other pc sons of terms and conditions upon the trade which are unreasonable or unnecessary. (g) To secure legislation for the protection of the interests of Members and to promote or oppose and join in promoting or opposing the Bills in Parliament. (h) To adopt such means of making known the operations of the Association as may seem to the Council expedient. (t) To adopt any means which in the opinion of the Council may be incidental or conducive to the above objects. PROTECTION. The first object embraces not only exhibitors but their employees and those with whom their business is chiefly conducted, viz., the Renters and Manufacturers. Misapprehension has arisen and may arise again concerning this object. It has been too hastily assumed that because the Association has been registered under the Trade Union Acts it is therefore a Trade Union in the same sense as the Dockers' Union. This is an error it is perhaps not unnatural should occur. The Association, however, is not a Union of employees, but a Union of employers. Those who are employed by exhibitors, although not organised as are the employees in many other walks of life, are nevertheless capable of being organised, and on one or two sides organisation exists, to wit, the A.M.U., the E.T.U. and the N.A.T.E., to which an increasing number of musicians, operators, and doormen belong. The emploj^er unorganised is always in a weak position when he has to deal with organised labour. He rarely can secure even fair treatment. If he is subject to unfair and extortionate demands he often must give way, and thereby places his brother exhibitor in a false and dangerous position. But good will and good understanding can be promoted and fairness and equity secured if both sides meet upon more or less equal terms so far as organisation is concerned. In this connection Rule XIII. provides in Clause 3 that if any member becomes involved in any dispute relating to the trade, he may submit his case to the President, Vice-President, Treasurer and General Secretary, who, if they think fit, and are so advised by the Solicitor, may grant the said member interim protection in respect of any cost so incurred until the next meeting of the Council, when the Council shall consider the case, and if it is satisfied that any question of principle or of general interest to the trade is involved, it may grant protection. Upon the grant of protection by the Council, the Council may pay from the funds of the Association such sum as may be decided to meet costs incurred. Any member who in the opinion of the Council has become involved in any dispute by his own lack of judgment or good sense shall not be entitled to benefit. Should a dispute occur between Exhibitors and Renters and should the Association call upon its members to take certain action which might involve loss, under the same rule the members would be protected, and provision is made, should the funds not be adequate, to make levies. There is therefore power not only to give members the fullest protection, but the means are provided, as they were not in the old organisation, to make the protection effective.