A BOX OFFICE WINNER

'Chato's Land' is very much a film of its time. It is enormously violent —at least 13 people are killed - and it comes down in the film's own way, on the side of the Indian against the white man.

The film's producer and director is British, 36-year-olo Michael Winner. Winner will readily admit he never sets out to make a masterpiece but rather a film that will sell.

In that sense he tends to pour scorn on those in the industry who complain the profit system deters the talented film-maker. Winner, however, accepts this system. He is happy in making average films well and making money when they sell.

Like so many westerns these days, the film is centred around the developments that take place within the scope of an extended chase for a fugitive who has supposed to have broken the law, at least in the eyes of the majority. techniques incorporated in recent" western 'chases', including the often psychedelic mixture of colour and the slow, panning shots with the telephoto lense.

The opening scene is pure Paul Newman, played with a dumbness that is almost a send-up of itself.

The half-breed Apache Chato (Charles Bronson) is drinking in a saloon when . the sheriff walks in and tells the Indian it is a white man's saloon. As Chato carries on drinking the sheriff pulls his gun and prepares to shoot him in the back.

Chato happens to be the fastest half-breed in the West and shoots the sherifi dead before anyone can move.

The chase is on and it soon becomes an excuse for all sorts of Indian-haters, mostly small farmers, to forget what happened in the saloon-that it was a fair fight-to hunt him down.

With the sheriff gone, it falls upon a former officer in the Confederate army to lead the fight.

All he can remember is losing to the North because they had more men. Presumably one Indian wouldn't be too much trouble.

In a short time he has rounded the best Indian-haters he can find who vow to catch Chato and burn him. Two Scottish farmers go along because they don't want to offend their neighbours by refusing.

Chato is not by nature a violent man. And for the early part of the film the director is at pain to contrast him with his pursuers who are driven forward by nothing but intense hatred for Indians in general.

Chato's simply tire

The building workers' pay fight may issue selective strike call BUILDING trade unions representing 400,000 workers are on the point of launching official industrial action in support of their claim for £30 for a 35-hour week and three weeks' holiday. • Negotiations. which have set up with the task of selecting Building workers lobbying union-employer pay talks in February dragged on for a year now, have made virtually no progress. A special sub-committee of the wages negotiating committee of the National Joint Council is now trying to break the deadlock.

Th- Lan 1- .:1- ine iraae union sae or une NJC has given the employers until June 26 to come forward with substantial improvements in their offer.

On this date the trade unions will consider procedure exhausted under the NJC constitution and have declared their intentions of going forward with industrial action.

National and regional action the firms to be hit and coordinating the activities of unions involved.

The unions involved in the negotiations have been led by the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT), which represents about Others involved have included the Transport and eneral Workers' Union, : representing about 100,000 workers, General and Municipal Workers' Union and FTATU, the furniture trades union.

They have between them 12 seats on the NJC, the same as the building employers.

Throughout the rotracted negotiations, the emplo 'ers have really treated the uni )nS with contempt, cancelling at short, and sometimes non-existent notice, NJC meetings.

They have attempted to take advantage not only of the weak leadership in the building unions but also the phenomenally high unemployment rate among building workers.

Almost 180,000 out of a job in about one in six labour force.

The employers have been able to use unemployment to intensify their attacks on trade unionism on building sites. At the moment no more than 35 per cent of the industry is organized by trade unions.

The trend can be seen by the HI DING CHARTER workers are the industry, of the total NO They increased the offer to £2.00 for craftsmen and £1.60 for labourers.

They also wanted to introduce a guarantee weekly minimum wagé to give craftsmen another £2.00 and labourers £1.50p-but only if they didn't earn that much in bonuses. The unions rejected the deal.

On April 12 the employers snubbed the unions yet again by cancelling another scheduled meeting.

The first UCATT officials heard about it was when the T&GWU phoned them up. The meeting eventually took place on April 25 when the employers repeated their March 16 offer.

On May 4 the employers tried another tack by offering a 19month agreement which would TSWPaB have lasted until December 1973.

By that time craftsmen would only have been on £24 and labourers £20. Rejection again. The employers said it was their "final offer'.

On May 18 the unions met and decided to press ahead with exhausting procedure before organizing industrial action.

Deadlock was recorded at the subsequent NJC meeting on May 21 and a special sub-committee was set up to try and come up with a solution. The unions gave it until June 26.

The union leadership is not prepared to launch an all-out strike for the claim. Instead preparations are being made for as yet unspecified industrial action on a series of selected strikes up and down the country.