India TV Industry on Strike Again
The Federation of Western India Cine Workers, FWICE declared another indefinite strike on the 12th November in the Bollywood city of India, Mumbai. The strike is a follow-up to the 2nd October indefinite non-cooperation movement by the federation of the film industry. The federation had set a charter of demands such as decent working standards for the workers in the film industry, proper working hours, setting minimum wages, employment of only the federation members. These demands had been stated in the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) which had been signed by the Producers associations but was not being implemented. And as such after many talks when the federation realized that their voice was turning towards deafened ears they declared indefinite non cooperation movement where all the workers from the film industry refused to work. UNI MEI had globally supported the Federation’s non-cooperation movement and asked the producers’ association to accept and implement the MOU. This movement ended on the third day when the producer associations after a meeting with the federation agreed to the demands and drafted another Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU was agreed upon and signed by both the producers’ associations and the federation.
However, a month has passed by and the federation noted that the producers from the television industry were still not following the MOU. When questioned by the federation for the reason of not paying the wages, the producers blamed the global economic crisis. Based on the observations, the federation decided to hold another indefinite non cooperation for the television industry. This has created major panic in the television industry as all the shootings have been halted indefinitely due to which there are repeat telecasts of the previous shows. The federations are waiting to see the how the producers would react to the workers demands for their duly rights, as stated by the President of FWICE to the UNI MEI India Coordinator Anjali Sinha.
UNI MEI supports the fight for film workers rights by the Federation and urges the producers associations to follow the MOU.