Monday shoot Off for wage meet

CHENNAI: Peeved by Film Employees Federation of South India’s unilateral announcement of a new payscale for film employees, Tamil film producers have announced an emergency general body meeting on Monday. To ensure complete attendance of film producers at the meeting, all film shooting has been called off on Monday.FEFSI on Friday announced that film employees would no longer work in the existing payscale, and instead announced a revised tariff. This announcement came only a week after the Tamil Film Producers Council clarified that it would resume talks with FEFSI regarding remuneration of film employees. Council president SA Chandrasekaran had then requested that film employees charge only the previous payscale till an agreement was reached.Speaking to Express, Siva, secretary of FEFSI, said the daily wages for five of the 23 crafts of FEFSI had been revised already, while four more were being discussed by producers and FEFSI together. No written agreement was made for these, and discussions were pending for 14 other categories of contract employees like cinematographers.The last revision of payscale, usually valid for a period of three years, expired in January 2011.