Digging Our Way Out of a Hobbit Hole...

Techos’ Guild President Alun Bollinger shares some thoughts on recent headline-grabbing events.

Does it not strike anyone else as ironic that we are being told collective agreements are not possible in the screen-production industry because we work as contractors, yet every member of a crew gets handed an identical piece of paper to sign?

Apart from a few HODs in the upper ranks of the crew, the only difference between individual crew member’s contracts are in the dollar amounts each individual is to be paid; in every other respect they are generally identical. Seems remarkably like a collective agreement to me, except of course we are not supposed to get together and agree on the agreement.

We now have an amendment to the Employment Relations Act, the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill, which covers film workers, or more particularly: ‘a person engaged in film production work as an actor, voice-over actor, stand-in, body double, stunt performer, extra, singer, musician, dancer, or entertainer,‘ or: ‘a person engaged in film production work in any other capacity.‘ However this ‘does not apply if the person is a party to, or covered by, a written employment agreement that provides that the person is an employee’. So there is an out-clause.

I presume the aim of the amendment is to eliminate the possibility of collective bargaining, but I can’t quite see how it works. SPADA, supported by statements from Gerry Brownlee and the Auditor General and Sir Peter Jackson, claimed it was illegal for producers to negotiate with the actors’ union and that was before the Warner Bros. executives visited. So why was the law amended? And note the amendment: ‘excludes work performed, or services provided, in respect of the production of any programme intended initially for broadcast on television’. In other words, it is still possible and legal for SPADA and Equity/MEAA to sort out terms and conditions for screen actors in this country.

It seems that Equity and SPADA are now talking, finally, which is great. I hope they can work through their differences and find a constructive way forward. That said, I was saddened to read SPADA’s response to Equity’s recent letter of explanation. Such a defensive stance is not going to help on-going relations between the parties.

Various people have stated the need for stable work arrangements to ensure off-shore producers feel comfortable about bringing their projects here. Yet surely clearly defined working conditions would help make for more stable working arrangements. SPADA has claimed that producers do stick by the agreement they currently have with actors, The Pink Book. However, from our experience with The Blue Book, I know that some producers will happily alter conditions and sometimes present crew with contracts that stray well away from The Blue Book. And I have to say it is often line producers servicing off-shore productions filming in NZ who happily flout The Blue Book conditions. How does that signal stable working conditions to an off-shore producer? Everyone should read Tim Riley’s piece, ‘The Shire Schism’ on page 22 of the latest On Film mag. As he points out, standard contracts could make everyone’s dealings with each other much more straight forward.

The Equity/Hobbit ‘debate’ has been littered with half-truths, innuendo and media hype. It seemed that no party was particularly open or honest; making it difficult to know what was actually going on behind the scenes.

The Techos’ Guild exec decided very early on that another voice would be counter-productive. Although it seemed clear that many techos were against the actors’ stance for fear that it might threaten their livelihoods, there were still many differing points of view among the techo community. The Guild’s exec had no desire to take sides in an industrial dispute that we were dangerously uninformed about. Please note that we were involved in conversations behind the scenes encouraging dialogue between the parties.

Why were _The Hobbit _producers unable to meet with the actors’ reps? I can only imagine the pressure Sir Peter was under from his L.Alien producers. I’m guessing that they would have been pleased to have an excuse to review their options with the possibility of getting a better bang-for-their-buck. Whatever went down behind the scenes it seems to have back-fired on the actors.

Although our Prime Minister has taken a lot of flak for allowing foreign interests to dictate NZ employment law and also lever more money out of our Government, I think John Key was rather clever in the way he worked these changes. I imagine local and foreign producers alike lobbied for the changes to the employment law that are certainly no skin off this National Government’s nose. Added to this, the Government avoided raising the amount of the Large Budget Production Grant Scheme by attaching the additional Government investment to a tourism promotional package.

But how does the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill actually affect us as screen production workers? I can’t see that it affects us at all. We are already generally engaged as contractors, but there is an allowance in the law for anyone to be taken on as an employee if that’s the arrangement which suits both the worker and the producer.

I have often said that there are many working in this industry who would actually be better off as employees. We’re just not all cut out to run businesses. Once upon a time I used to work both as an employee (paying PAYE) and as a contractor (paying with-holding tax), depending on the nature of the job. Then, in 1992, I was told by the accountant on the feature film I was working on that I had to pay with-holding tax, that I was effectively a contractor and not an employee. At the time I presumed that was just for that particular job, but I was wrong in that presumption. I still do not know where that directive came from, but I’m inclined to presume it was a deliberate push from producers.

So, 18 years or so ago a ‘convention’ was established that film workers are contractors, and despite film workers and actors effectively having no input into this decision, this ‘convention‘ has now become law. Of course this arrangement suits most of us fine, but many of us could do with some lessons on how best to run our business affairs, so over the next few editions of NZTECHO we’ll be sharing employment, financial and tax advice from your peers, as well as relevant experts.

I sincerely hope that this dispute does not sour working relationships within our little industry. We’re all in this together. Now that The Hobbit hoo-ha has settled down we should all shake hands and get on with whatever job is at hand.