Culture

Bollywood goes on strike

by Paul Conneally | October 1, 2008 at 05:40 am

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The fastest growing film and TV industry in the world is Asian. Bollywood is at the heart of this industry turning out film after film to be eagerly devoured by the huge Indian film going audience. Today we hear that Bollywood's major stars along with technical staff and writers - that's over 100,000 workers - have started an indefinite "non-cooperation" protest - effectively a strike.

Movie stars, including Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, as well as dancers, writers and technicians heeded a call for an indefinite "non-cooperation" protest in Mumbai, where Bollywood, home to India's prolific movie industry, is located.

"All shoots are off. The producers have not stuck to the terms of the agreement they signed with us one-and-a-half years back," said Dinesh Chaturvedi, general secretary of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees, the umbrella union for Bollywood employees.

"Payments have been delayed by three months, six months, a year. And producers are hiring non-members to save costs. We are not happy to call for this non-cooperation, but we are helpless."

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Amy Judd

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:40 on October 1st, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

This is kind of shocking because the industry is so huge!!!

Paul Conneally

at 08:04 on October 1st, 2008

It's really hard to imagine - 100,000 workers - I have no idea how this copares with the core work force in Hollywood.

Uwe Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:08 on October 1st, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

That is would be a big strike in deed.

chowdawg

at 08:36 on October 1st, 2008

Next we will be hearing about riots. India without daily Bollywood releases is like Vancouver without rain.

Rachel Nixon

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:43 on October 1st, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Amy Judd

at 08:34 on October 3rd, 2008

The strike has actually been called off:

Union leader Dinesh Chaturvedi told the BBC News website that managers had agreed to their demands.

Unions said staff were working unreasonable hours and in many cases producers were months behind in payments to their staff.

Paul Conneally

at 15:47 on October 3rd, 2008

They went on strike and the worry it caused the industry saw them give in to the Union demands which is a victory for the workers!

Now the singing and dancing and acting can go on again! A nation of millions sighs a sigh of relief!

docboylive

at 03:20 on October 5th, 2008

Its sad to see Bollywood workers going on strike, specially if this is going to last a long time, since it would severely affect the daily livelihood of many weekly paid ones, who may not be able to hold on for very long, given the huge inflation in India at present and also the credit crunch.

docboylive has contributed a photo to this story.