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The first all-industry agreement was signed in 1939 with the Film Employers’ Federation, prompted by the threat of strike action from the laboratory workers. However, the Film Employers’ Federation disintegrated shortly after and was replaced by separate bodies representing each area of the film industry: British Film Producers Association ...
Women were overlooked in the initial unionization process as a result of widely held beliefs that women were unsympathetic to trade unions, were difficult to organize and did not work in the most important parts of the industry (Gabin, 1990: 19, 24) – beliefs which find a parallel within historiography concerning women in the British labour ...
First, directors and producers were in the same union as the rank and file they employed; this is, as Iain Reid demonstrates, one of the “peculiarities” of the British film industry. 7 Close Second, the ACT was effective in establishing a “closed shop,” which meant all film technicians had to be members in order to work. This included those in senior creative roles, such as director ...
ACT began organising film laboratory workers, and in 1943 it affiliated to the Labour Party. At the ACT annual general meeting of 1949 the union made the decision to create ACT Films Limited which with the support of the President of the Board of Trade, Harold Wilson, was established in 1950. [2]
After the outbreak of war in 1939, ACT found its standing hugely improved. It was influential in persuading the government that film work was vital to the war effort, and was made the vetting body for 'reserved' technicians (leading not surprisingly to a membership boom). The arrival of peace led to a brief period of full employment, but by ...
The union was founded by technicians at the Gaumont British Studios in 1933 as the Association of Cine-Technicians, later becoming the Association of Cinematograph Technicians (ACT). [2] By the following year, it was struggling; it had just 88 members, with only a quarter of those paid up, and it was in financial difficulties.
The Grunwick dispute was a British industrial dispute involving trade union recognition at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in Chapter Road, Dollis Hill in the London suburb of Willesden, that led to a two-year strike between 1976 and 1978. [ 1 ]
