Guild Milestones and Advocacy

Kia Ora All,

Well we did it! We launched our new name, our new branding, and released the 2017 Blue Book and it all came together with three fabulous parties to celebrate the Guilds 30 Year Anniversary. For those of you who attended the celebrations you have to agree they were great parties, with each event rolling into the wee hours of the morning! It was a brilliant opportunity for many to meet the old guard, and hear the history of the Guild, for others the opportunity to exchange stories and reconnect with colleagues in a non-work atmosphere. For many, including myself it was a chance to truly appreciate how outstanding our Guild has been over many years and how broad our membership is. (30 Years as a non-profit organi- sation is an outstanding accomplishment in anyone’s books). Photos from each event can be found on our website under Events. A small selection of photos from the event can also be found on pages 12 and 13.

So as we transition from old to new, there is still a little housekeeping for members. Although I sent an email notification out on the 31st October advising that our email addresses have changed, not everyone appears to have updated their records. The mothership has a new email address which is info@screenguild.co.nz and accounts is now accounts@screenguild.co.nz. The old emails are effectively inactive - so please update your records.

By the time you receive this magazine, if you are an active paid up member of the Guild you should have received your new hardcopy of the updated Blue Book. These were posted out early December. We are so proud of the final publication on many levels. Firstly to finally see all the years of hard work (put in predominantly by Sioux Macdonald and Nick Treacy) come to fruition. Another day or so and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see either of them rip it up, throw it over their shoulders and walk into the sunset. It was a massive task and I thank them on behalf of everyone at the Guild for their perseverance, tenacity and staying power to see the task completed right to the end whilst both were also running their own busi- nesses. We must also thank SPADA and the NZAPG for their feedback to ensure we had a document that all parties could agree on. Towards the final stages, before it got to both these organisations, we additionally met with various others in the industry to get their feedback and would like to acknowledge the assistance in particular of Chloe Smith, Katie Kempe, Mark Gillings, Annie Weston, Richard Bluck, Sue Sparks, Teuila Field, for their production critique, Dianne Moffatt for sub-editing the document, and Mick Sinclair for his legal overview and opinion.

So if you haven’t received your copy of the Blue Book it maybe because your address details on the Guild’s website database are incorrect or out of date. Since the launch of the new website, six months ago, all members have been notified and reminded in the magazine, Rushes, AGM notifica- tions, and launch notifications to log in and ensure their details are correct. More than this, I cannot do.

The other hot topic over the past couple of months was news on the proposed repeal of the Hobbit Law. All active members of the Guild, were kept up to date with all communications between the new Minister of Workplace Relations, Iain Lees Galloway and the Screen Industry Guild regarding proposed changes to the “Hobbit Law” as started to unfold. When the media broke this news, on the 29th October, The Guild adopted a measured approach to ensure our comments and responses were informed and not reactive. On the Monday prior to the announcement, the Herald contacted Richard Bluck and myself for comment on what they were quoting as the Governments “100 Day pre-election promised to “repeal” the Hobbit law. This was before Government was in fact sworn in which happened two days later, on the Wednesday. At the time both Richard and I decided that to comment would be premature preferring to wait until the Government was sworn in and an official statement had been made. On Thursday before any official statement had been made or ministers had been briefed the media went ahead and made a release. On this news breaking I got in touch with the Senior Labour Press Secretary, and asked whether the media release was accurate. The clarification we received that day was that the Government had in fact said in its pre- election promises that “they would look at ‘reviewing’ (not revoking) the Hobbit Law and would make a ‘statement’ (not change) within the first 100 days”. Following this initial contact, we were put directly in contact with the Ministers and within a week a representative group from the Screen Industry Guild sat in front of the Minister and the head of MBIE to begin a dialogue. The Minister was still sitting amongst unpacked boxes so we were very privileged to have had such an early audience. It was agreed in this early meeting that the Government would work with the Guild(s) and would not rush into any changes as occurred when the law was initially changed in 2011. Post this meeting the Minister has gone on record to say that it is “business as usual” and that those who wish to remain work- ing as ‘contractors’ should be able to do so moving forward. A week later, the Screen Industry Guild invited the Minister and his Press Secretary to meet at the Kumeu Studios for an official press release announcement. The suggestion to hold the press announcement at the studios came from the Screen Industry Guild in co-operation with Screen Auckland to give the Minister an overview of projects that had been shot and the scale that the NZ Screen Industry is working to. It is important to realise, for this new Minister he had not previously seen first-hand the typical environment in which we work. This second meeting helped to set up a healthy collabora- tive environment for Government and the screen industry moving forward and as a result a “working group” is to be formed to advise policy makers on the effects that changes to the law in relation to the screen industry will have. Since these meetings all the Guilds and associated organisations will over the upcoming weeks canvas our various memberships in a survey to gauge feeling. Not all Guilds are going to want the same thing but we need to find out what the general consensus is. This will then be presented back to Parliament and from here we can begin to explore options.

So some food for thought. For those who are not members of the Screen Industry Guild, please recognise the work we do is for the benefit of tech- nical (below the line) crew with a wider vision for the health of the entire NZ screen industry. The Screen Industry Guild is a non-profit organisation supported by paid up Guild members and run predominantly by passionate volunteers and the kind koha of professional advisors. If you take advan- tage of the “terms and conditions” set out in the Blue Book, a publication created by the Screen Industry Guild, I would ask you to consider whether as a “non-member” you are truly entitled to use these guidelines, or as an “independent non guild contractor” you should state up front to any em- ploying production company that you are not a member of the Guild and would like to discuss your independent non Guild terms and conditions of employment. If this has given you cause to reconsider your position, you can go to our website and just click on “Join the Guild” to become a member of this very special and necessary organisation.