Mumbai: November 21, 2008 - Wednesday's euphoria over the "understanding'' between television producers and workers and the promise of fresh episodes of serials from next Monday seem to have been a little premature.

Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE)-affiliated make-up artistes and audio technicians refused to return to work on Thursday, complaining that the revised rates offered to them by the producers were not at all satisfactory.

Producers, who were looking forward to starting work and making up for the losses because of the cancelled schedules, said they had had enough. Some producers said they might look at hiring fresh people in place of the striking workers.

The MoU signed between the producers and FWICE on Wednesday offered a make-up man with two assistants a salary of Rs 80,000 a month. But Raju, a make-up man, said on Thursday: "It is not satisfactory. We want at least Rs 1.30 lakh a month. We work day in and day out for 16 hours.''

The sound department, too, struck work, crippling the entire television industry. The new MoU stipulated that a sound recordist would get a salary of Rs 40,000 a month though the community expected a salary of Rs 55,000. Sound Department president B N Tiwari said: "We are unhappy with the deal and so have decided to strike work. We have made a fresh proposal to the FWICE; each member of our department should get Rs 48,000 a month and a boom-man wants at least Rs 21,000. The committee members will now take the new rates to the producers and only then will we return to work.''

The producers remained clueless. Association of Motion Pictures and Television Producers president Ratan Jain said there was no communication from the FWICE. "The industy suffered a loss of at least Rs 1.5 crore on Thursday as at least 100 shootings were planned. The FWICE is forcing us to look at alternative options if it is going to function like this.''

Mukesh Bhatt, convenor of the producers' body, said: "No one has told us about not honouring the new MoU. We are not going to make any more change. We want the workers to set their house in order and, if nothing happens in the next two days, we will have to look for alternate solutions.'' Alternative solutions mean hiring fresh recruits, say producers.

But FWICE general secretary Dinesh Chaturvedi said workers had decided not to honour the new MoU.

But help for producers may come from unexpected quarters. The Western India Producers' Association has a strength of 25,000 members and has agreed to offer its services to the producers. Association president Sangram Shirke said: "We have dissociated ourselves from the FWICE and have agreed to offer our services to the producers.''