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For years film production in Peru had been growing but working conditions, especially for technicians, remained insupportable. The workers, freelancers in the vast majority, were only told the hour to begin work, not the hour or even the day when they would finish. Often they worked a full 24 or even 36 hours without stopping. And this was without any paid overtime or right to complain.



A series of accidents on the set, culminating in the accidental death of perhaps the most respected gaffer in the country, prompted virtually all the film electricians in the country plus technicians of four other set crafts to declare enough. Two of the deceased gaffer’s protégés and closest friends, Dennis Ramirez and Jose Villaran, took the leadership and formed a new organisation, the Association of Cinema Technicians of Peru (ATCP).



The new group called a general meeting and drew up a set of standards – including shorter and specific working hours, overtime provisions and other regulations. They insisted that they wanted to work with producers to improve the situation of the entire film industry in the country, not to discourage it. The group elected Ramirez president and Villaran secretary. They then set a meeting with the main production companies in the country and informed them of the new working conditions they sought. The producers, apparently shocked, accepted immediately many of the demands and even agreed to a minimum 12 hour day to be instituted over time. Much improved conditions are now already in force, though the producers have since brought in an expensive lawyer and have not yet agreed to sign an official contract.



The successes of this new group, which emerged in the last six months, were reported at the second event of a three-year project of the film production workers in UNI-MEI/PANARTES, held in Montevideo, Uruguay, with the support of the Dutch FNV, 26-29 November. (The first event was held in June this year, in Santiago, Chile, with the Chilean film technicians’ union, SINTECI.) The Montevideo workshop was organised by the project coordinator, Rolando Santos, and the local film union, relatively new itself, GremioCine.



Issues discussed in Montevideo were status of freelance workers, social security issues, gender, certification and training, among others. Major emphasis was given to organising, the central objective of the project. Besides the Uruguayans, Peruvians and Chileans, unions from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. The Argentine delegation was led by Sergio Zottola who just days before had been elected the new president of that organisation, SICA.



The project hopes in the future to identify or help new film technician groups to emerge in Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia, as a minimum. The Peruvian group plans to extend into the remaining unorganised film crafts in their country.