About Us
The Workshop Agreement
A brief outline of the trade union agreement under which Amber operates.
In the early 1980s Amber played a major role in negotiating the ACTT (now BECTU)* Workshop Declaration. Basically, it allows cross grade working and an egalitarian wage structure within a trade union context. Cross-grade working (members being able to cover more than one film-making craft skill) enables a collective to maintain a sustainable scale of operation and work with small budgets. A flat rate wage structure solves any status problems.
In 1982 the newly-established UK television broadcaster Channel 4 made a commitment to independent production groups operating under the terms of the Declaration. Under the franchise system that this introduced, both Amber and the broader Workshop Movement flourished. In the early 1990s Channel 4, in pursuit of a more commercial approach, knocked it all on the head.
Many of the workshops disappeared, but some, like Amber, managed to survive, adapting to the new economic context. We continue to operate under the terms of the agreement, although we’re not sure if anybody else uses it. It doesn’t seem to figure on the BECTU website, but it serves us well as a constitution under which to operate and members of the collective are all still paid on the basis of the BECTU workshop minimum.
- ACTT: Association of Cinematograph & Television Technicians; BECTU: Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph & Theatre Union.