The face-off between television show producers and the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), which forced general entertainment channels (GECs) to air reruns of their programmes, has been resolved.
Members of the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA), Producers’ Guild and FWICE met in the early hours of Wednesday. The meeting ended in the afternoon, with an announcement calling off the strike.
While details of the agreement have not been disclosed, FE has learnt that the producers have agreed to give a 7.5% wage hike to workers.
“Workers will now be paid monthly wages, instead of receiving payments per day,” said film-maker Mukesh Bhatt. Work timings have been agreed upon as 9 am to 10 pm, beyond which workers will be paid on a pro-rata basis.
However, FWICE sources said that although the strike has been called off for now, regularising workers’ pay still remains an issue.
Sources said that a majority of workers are employed on a freelance basis; according to their contracts, payments must be made after 45 days. But workers said that they are paid only after 90 days. Even then, payments are made by post-dated cheques.
FE has also learnt that producers and FWICE representatives have agreed to resume shooting from today.
But, directors said that it is practically impossible to begin shooting on such a short notice. A director, who requested anonymity, said, “Half the people are not in town and it will be some time before we can begin shooting again.” Cine workers had begun the strike during the first week of October, following which channels started airing reruns of programmes from November 10.
The director, however, said that starting November 24, general entertainment channels start airing fresh episodes of their programmes, as some of them have such episodes in stock. This will give a breather to for production houses to shoot new episodes.
“In case of reality show, we can shoot three to four episodes in one day because they are all multi-camera shoots.” Since fiction shows are elaborate in nature, it takes at least two to three days to complete one episode.
Broadcasters were supposed to receive the official communiqu? regarding the agreement on Wednesday evening. A single unit of television production requires at least 150 people. Over one lakh workers had gone on strike.