Indian TV employees resume work after strike
2008-11-24 / Courtesy: Muzi.com
MUMBAI (AFP) - Workers in India’s television industry went back to work on Monday, unions said, after a stop-start strike that plunged the country’s soap opera schedules into turmoil.
Shooting resumed in all major studios, although disgruntled employees of some unions that make up the Federation of Western Indian Cine Employees (FWICE) said exact terms still had to be thrashed out.
A two-week strike over pay and conditions ended last Wednesday, but some FWICE members walked out again on Thursday.
They claimed that union leaders had not consulted them and the revised deal to give set assistants a 35 percent pay rise, monthly salaries and a one-month notice period was still not good enough.
But the union’s general secretary, Dinesh Chaturvedi, said: “We all are back at work and there is no problem now. Everywhere, shooting has begun.”
Sound recordists and make-up artists who refused to accept the deal were among those who returned to work, he added, expressing confidence that the matter could be resolved amicably.
“We will come two steps forward and the producers will come two steps forward,” he was quoted as saying by the leading Indian news and entertainment website rediff.com.
“And this is how the crisis will resolve. At this moment however, we are going back to work.”
The strike disrupted shooting of some Bollywood movies and Hindi-language entertainment channels, including the daily soap operas that have a dedicated following.
**** Update November 26th 2008 - All Fresh Episodes to be aired from December 1st 2008
SET creative head (fiction) Sanjay Upadhyay said,”All the shows on Sony will have fresh content from Monday. We are glad that the better sense has prevailed. Both producers and workers have started to realise that this conflict will not benefit any one. Now that the economy is bad, there is no scope for any unfair demand to be fulfilled. It is good news that the workers have started working. Television shows are our bread and butter, so why milk it dry by asking for unreasonable things. This conflict had a bad impact on all of us. It is good to have a nice, peaceful and harmonious relation with each other and make a benefit out of it.”
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