The Tamil Film Producers Council has decided to call of its strike that lasted only a few days after successfully negotiating wage structure with the workers of the Tamil film industry.
Announcing the end of the strike, Siva, secretary, Tamil Film Producers’ Council, said: “Except for the stunt union, we have concluded negotiations with other unions. We will be discussing the matter with the stunt union tomorrow.”
Both the Tamil Film Producers Council and the Film Employees Federation of South India said they had reached an agreement on wage increase. “There was a mutual give and take from both the sides. An average wage increase of 40-50% has been agreed by the producers,” G. Shiva, president of FEFSI, said on Wednesday.
The strike, says an active member of the Producers’ Council, had to be resorted to because of the union’s decision to increase the wages without consulting the producers’ council. “They just went ahead and hiked the rates, sometimes as high as 100 per cent,” the producer said.
The negotiations between producers’ council and FEFSI have always been long drawn out. The TFPC had consistently called for differential wages for big and small-budget movies. However, this demand was rejected and instead the union rules were relaxed for producers making smaller films.
“We cannot have different wages for different films because the work done by, say, a driver or a carpenter is the same whether it is Enthiran or some other smaller film. However, we have relaxed certain rules which were rigid,” said Mr. Shiva.
Reacting to the council’s decision to unilaterally announce a strike, Mr. Shiva said there was no necessity for a strike but they, however, decided to sit down and thrash out the finer details.
The low wages have always been a problem of the Tamil film industry. Reacting to the recent wage increases, a producer said that no producer has a problem with revision of wages. “The problem is when the union imposes how many light men will work on my set,” he said.
