Filmcity strike trouble: Producers’ body meets and calls for an end to hafta collection and goondaism

IMPPA, WIFPA and FWICE and other producers’ bodies came together to condemn the flash strike called by workers of Allied Mazdoor Union two days back that brought shooting at Filmcity and Mehboob studio to a virtual standstill thereby paralysing the work, something which was first and exclusively reported by Tellychakkar.com (read here: http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/tv-news/strike-shooting-stopped-filmcity-after-balaji-crew-and-allied-mazdoor-union-members). At a press conference organised at a suburban five star today, filmmaker Ashok Pandit, Dharmesh Tiwari, Kamlesh Pandey, daily soap producers Sumeet Mittal, J.D Majhethia and many others vehemently protested the hooliganism indulged by General Secretary of Allied Mazdoor Union, Gangeshwar Shrivastav and alleged that it was his hoodlums who thrashed Balaji's production controller Roshan and not the other way round, as reported in certain sections of the media. Speaking against Gangeshwar Shrivastav was none other than Allied Mazdoor Union's Vice Chairman Sanjay Singh who openly called him criminal and a history-sheeter. Speaking exclusively to Tellychakkar.com, Sanjay narrated the entire episode as he claims to have seen it. “I am the Art Director with Balaji and also the Vice Chairman of Allied Mazdoor Union. The shift of the first unit on the sets of Ye Hai Mohabbatein was to end by 9 pm. But there was still work to be done and since it would have taken time for the other unit to come in workers were requested to put in extra time for which Balaji of course pays. But then there landed Gangeshwar's brother Deepak Shrivastav and said that worker will not work till he is paid his hafta. A sum of Rs. 3000 was exchanged hands and they left. Seeing this I called Rakesh Mauraya, Joint Secretary of Allied Mazdoor Union who then directed Deepak Shrivastav to return the hafta and leave the place. Deepak, however returned to the sets and started demanding that shoot be stopped and asked workers to pack up till unit is not changed. This is when Balaji's production controller Roshan intervened and said that why problems are being created on the sets of Balaji when we pay everyone full money on time. He cited the example of Cinemantra where workers have not been paid for more than three months. This spurred Deepak who then rained blows on Roshan along with Mangal Yadav, Naveen Singh, Dharmendra and their driver." Supporting Sanjay's statement were all others present at the press conference from Ashok Pandit, Dharmesh Tiwari and others. All of them denounced the strike which has incurred huge losses to both producers as well as workers. Producer J D Majhetia said, “The show must always go on and shoot shouldn't stop at any cost. Our TV industry has undergone a revolution. It is not easy to produce a daily soap. We TV producers are a vulnerable lot. When they say that we have to stop shooting, we become helpless. All the producers are suffering from high stress and it is not acceptable by producers’ community. We have always been cooperative and have always given what you want and even today we are ready but to stop an ongoing shoot is unacceptable. We have a fixed budget and have to manage within it. We cannot give into these people’s unreasonable demands. There is also an MOU which says shoot can't be stopped.” Producer Sumeet Mittal of Diya Aur Baati Hum fame too faced a similar problem. “Some workers had come to the sets of Tumhari Paakhi and stopped the shoot claiming default. But there was no problem of default on our end. We have always paid on time. And why stop our shoots. It's illogical.” To put an end to this menace and make certain that such illegal strikes don't happen in future, the producers have decided to indulge in ‘freentrade’ where workers from other 22 associations excluding Allied Mazdoor Union would be called in to work. Meanwhile, Ashok Pandit appealed to Mithun Chakraborty who happens to be the Chairman of Allied Mazdoor Union to interfere and put an end to the money extortion racket. Sanjay Singh, Vice-Chairman of Allied Mazdoor Union however didn't sound too upbeat about Mithun and told us that Mithun has only been ignoring and neglecting their complaints and keep changing phone numbers so that none of the workers with grievances can get in touch with him. After this move by the producers’ body, let’s see how the members of the Allied Mazdoor Union will respond. Well, let's hope for the goodness of all peace prevails and the offenders are brought to book so that the show can peacefully go on.