The Cine workers who are on strike met Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav this morning. The Minister assured them of a wage revison. The producer’s council on the other hand gave an ultimatum to the cine workers to come to work or else they would stop the shootings for six months.
The cinema workers want their salaries to be raised by fifty per cent on a daily basis. They are paid Rs one thousand on an average per call sheet on a daily basis.
They want it to be raised by another Rs 500. Instead of a call sheet of six to six that is twelve hours they are forced to work for around fifteen to eighteen hours they complained.
Some of them are being paid seven hundred for nine hours. Last four years there is no wage revision for the cine workers. All the workers rushed to the Film federation office and they did not go for the shootings today.
The Telugu films are earning huge money on a Pan India basis, but paid at the local level they explained. The drivers also added that they were heavily exploited.
The producers are making good money and are not paying the workers properly they said. A decision in favour of the workers is expected by this evening.
Shootings of Ravi Teja, Dhanush, Sai Dharam Tej and Vijay Devarakonda have been stopped yesterday due to strike. One of the employees poured petrol on himself and tried to torch himself.
The workers from twenty-four crafts are demanding a rise in fifty to seventy per cent of the daily wages.
C Kalyan the representative of the Tollywood producers said that they are ready for talks with the cine workers if they come to the shootings. The shootings should not be stalled he suggested.
The producers almost gave a warning to the striking workers. There was no proper strike notice served so far to the producer council they explained.
They are ready to hike the wages but with conditions they suggested. Do not put the producers into trouble he suggested. The Cine workers must join the work and then talk about the talks and revision in the wages he stated.
But there were no big producers at the press meet today. We have to see if the workers would attend the shooting on Thursday. Some producers had to incur losses as the workers did not attend the work demanding revision of the wages.
Kalyan sounded as if there was no dearth of workers and they can get workers from anywhere.
