Yeah, really!  You may not particularly care about this, or know anything about it, but one of the biggest competitors to the American film industry is currently shut down as actors and crew strike for a bigger piece of the pie, as well as, from the sounds of things, to be treated like human beings.

Film employees in Mumbai claim that they have “gone without pay for several months”, and thus, are planning for an extended strike.  The working conditions aren’t so hot in Bollywood, either–employees apparently work for as long as thirty hours at a stretch, according to Dinesh Chaturvedi, of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees.  Further, health issues and accidents are occasionally part of the picture, and a protracted letter writing campaign aimed at producers did little good, so it’s not as though they went right to the striking.

The producers, not surprisingly, criticize the unions striking, claiming they are “threatening other people’s livelihoods”.

I find myself somewhat more behind the actors in this case than I am with SAG–a thirty hour day is hard enough, but going without pay for “several months” is unconscionable.  And besides–how threatened can people’s livelihoods actually be at this point? If the actors’ claims are correct, they’re already not getting paid, so what’s the difference?

So now we’ve got TWO film industries to watch–man, things are getting thrilling, aren’t they?

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