The Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) was a trade union in the United Kingdom. A Trade Union (Labour union) ... is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. ...

The union was founded by technicians at the Gaumont British Studios in 1933 as the Association of Cinematograph Technicians (ACT). It elected George Elvin as its first General Secretary the following year, and in 1936 affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. A technician is generally someone in a technological field who has a relatively practical understanding of the general theoretical principles of that field, e. ... Gaumont Pictures were founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont (1864-1946). ... Image:TradeUnionsCongress20050108 CopyrightKaihsuTai. ...

ACT began organising film laboratory workers, and in 1943 it affiliated to the Labour Party. In 1955, it extended its coverage to represent technicians working on ITV, and the following year incorporated "Television" into its name. A film laboratory is a commercial service provider and technical facility for the film industry which develops and prints film material for classical film production and distribution which is based on film material (negative and positive, black and white and color, on different film formats: 70/65, 35, 16, 9... The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the principal political party of the left in the United Kingdom. ... ITV (Independent Television) is the name popularly given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. In England, Wales and southern Scotland, the network has been rebranded to ITV1 by ITV plc, the owners of...

In the late 1950s, ACTT came into dispute with film directors John and Roy Boulting, and this may have partly inspired their film, I'm All Right Jack. ACTT were highly critical of the film's negative portrayal of trade unionists. John and Roy Boulting were English film-makers, who became known for their popular series of satirical comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. ... John and Roy Boulting were English film producers and directors. ... Im All Right Jack is a British comedy film directed and produced by John and Roy Boulting. ...

In 1969, Elvin was replaced as General Secretary by Alan Sapper.

The union repeatedly discussed potential mergers with the Association of Broadcasting Staff (ABS), which represented the equivalent workers at the BBC, but these foundered until in 1991 it finally merged with the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance, the successor to the ABS, to form the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union. The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) is a trade union in the United Kingdom. ...

References

• BECTU History: ACTT
• Alan Burton, Boulting, John Edward (1913–1985), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography