End of TV workers’ strike spells relief for viewers

By Shilpa Jamkhandikar

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A lobby group for thousands of workers in India’s television industry called off a fortnight-long strike on Wednesday after agreeing to a compromise with TV producers over better pay and working conditions.

The striking employees will resume work on Thursday, paving the way for the shooting of fresh episodes of TV serials -- welcome news for viewers subjected to reruns of popular soap operas.

"We have a lot of workers who work very hard and have an equal hand in the success of these serials and soaps," said Dharmesh Tiwari of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees, which represents workers.

"They deserve to be treated like professionals."

Apart from a pay hike, television producers have also put a new contract system in place for the workers.

"We have agreed to increase their pay, introduce a contract system rather than have daily wage workers and introduce insurance for the more than 500,000 workers who work on producing content for television," Mukesh Bhatt, chairman of the producers association, told Reuters.

Shoots in Mumbai, home to the Bollywood movie industry and the dominant Hindi-language general entertainment channels, had ground to a halt more than two weeks ago.

Nine general entertainment channels stopped airing fresh content on Nov. 9, banking on repeats of serials to take their place.