World | India
TV serial industry workers call off strike
Television viewers across the country can heave a sigh of relief since cine workers called off their strike on Wednesday.
- By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
- Published: 23:15 November 19, 2008
Mumbai: Television viewers across the country can heave a sigh of relief since cine workers called off their strike on Wednesday.
The workers, demanding better wages, reasonable working conditions and more breaks between shoots, will be back at work at the studios today and viewers can expect fresh episodes of their favourite TV serials being aired from Monday onwards.
"All the disputes between workers and producers have been settled and we are signing an agreement," said Shushma Shiromani, vice-president of Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association.
Dharmesh Tiwari, President of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), which had called the strike, said agreement details would be revealed later.
The strike was a result of a standoff with the TV producers who complained their costs would escalate and affect their production if they gave into the workers' demands.
Huge workforce
The federation on its part had said that the producers did not abide by their earlier agreements to increase the wages of workers. The most to be affected were the daily wage earners.
The federation is an umbrella body of 22 unions and 150,000 workers comprising of production boys, writers, dialogue writers, junior artistes, sound recordists, cinematographers, dancers, lightmen and others.
The strike, of course, impacted television serials and forced TV channels to broadcast repeat telecasts from November 10. It brought the TV industry in to a crisis as advertisers considered pulling out or cancelling advertisements that came up on repeat episodes.
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