FEFSI postpones agitation plans, but strike continues in Kollywood

We’d reported on September 2 that Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI) had announced an indefinite strike to protest the decision of Tamil Film Producers’ Council (TFPC) to recruit fresh professionals in all the different film crafts. The members of the association were also planning to stage an agitation on September 5 (yesterday) at Valluvar Kottam for the same.But in a latest development, the heads of TFPC and FEFSI, along with the heads of 23 crafts union, met on Monday for a discussion, as a result of which FEFSI has postponed its plans of staging an agitation.
A source in the know says, “The meeting was attended by Vishal (President, TFPC), RK Selvamani (President, FEFSI) and heads of all the film craft unions. In a meeting that lasted over four hours, a consensus on some of the conditions was reached. They will meet again in three days to finally settle their differences.”
Angamuthu Shanmugam (General Secretary, FEFSI) tells us, “Yes, we’ve postponed the agitation that had been planned for yesterday. If we’d gone ahead with it as planned, the strike would have continued and become even bigger. This would affect both producers and technicians. Already close to 50 films have been affected and they are unable to proceed with the shooting. So, when Vishal had called for a meeting with Selvamani, we all agreed. The first question we raised was regarding the one-to-one agreement (that TFPC should work only with FEFSI technicians). We also discussed certain general conditions that were beneficial to both of us and didn’t agree to some that we felt were abrupt. They will now speak to all the film unions separately and have a general body meeting. All of this should happen within two or three days. If they misuse or violate any of the conditions or one-to-one agreement, we will go ahead and stage an indefinite strike.”
The upcoming Tamil-Malayalam bilingual has a whopping playlist of 21 songs. The film also has a stellar star cast with Arti Venkatesh, Sai Dhanshika, Ann Augustine, Sruthi Hariharan, Neha Sharma, Dino Morea and Deepti Sati playing important roles.