By an ACIT member at London Weekend Television THE TIMING of the dispute that has blanked out ITV screens for almost a month was no accident. The unions were forced showdown in August, advertising is at als programmes are made then and the companies could afford to fight.
The firm stand taken by members of the major involved EETPU; and NATTKE — must have come as a nasty shock to the companies.
Alan Sapper, issociation Cinematograph, ind allied Technicians, has tried to portray the dispute as simply about pay. supplied by ACTT itself show him to be wrong.
The net revenue of the ITV companies last year was £363m, while the claim presented by the unions, which amounts to about 25 per cent on the national rate, would cost {3m to settle in That's only three days revenue, so from day three of the dispute, early last month, the companies had sacrificed more than it would have cost them to cough up.
The real issne is: Who runs the television industry? Behind the fight over pay lies a trial of strength over the re-allocation of franchises, control of the fourth TV channel, and the implementation of new technology.
The present dispute came to a head on 10 August after a 'final' offer of 15 per cent. When this was withdrawn by management, along with a threat to suspend those action, ACTT called out all nationally:
Fleet Street has about earnings of £17,000 a year and more in ITV. The fact is that pay ranges from £3,300 a ·12,000 for a handful of producers. The few programme really big earners, as Sapper has pointed out, are about as typical of the television industry as Elton John is of the Musicians' Union.
into a the month when lowest. Few ACTT, general secretary Television But figures taking industrial members produced its usual smears assistants to around London Inflation rates mean that a 35 per cent rise now would leave ACTT members no better off by July 1980 than we were in July 1975. This is, union to: cost-of-living clause which was frozen under the Labour government's pay policy.
The union has strong support for its resistance to management. example, a meeting of 450 ACTT members at Weekend Television hearted support' to the unions' position, with only six votes against.
But the union leaders' eagerness to go to arbitration is an evasion of the rea stake.
Ten reactivate underway, Last Friday, for gave 'whole If they negotiating to weakened issues at bloody workers years ago, when the current ITV companies received their franchises, the unions successfully established control over staffing levels and other aspects of organisation. As the scramble for the new franchises and IȚY2 gets the companies want to avoid repetition of this situation.
Win the companies will be in a position to dictate terms unions, in particular over the introduction of new technology.
Electronic news gathering equipment job creation programme. the about much more than Financial Times mournfully is signs of favour. already in use throughout much of the world. But in Britain, with the exception of IN, its introduction has been blocked, principally by ACTT. All the major companies have installed this equipment, and are itching to use it.
The unions want safeguards over crewing levels and jobs. Without these, the system could make Fleet Street's new technology look like a With all this at stake, the dispute is evidently pay, •and the • noted, it is the rank and file which has made the running.
The blank screens are now beginning to affect the lucrative autumn schedules. There chinks in ITV's armour, particularly among the smaller companies. The™
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