Safety, the Blue Book, and a New Identity
On safety, reviewing The Blue Book and thinking about names
It has been a beautiful summer and I have been very reluctant to leave my sanctuary on the Kapiti Coast, but I ventured to Auckland to attend the NZAPG Health and Safety meeting on February 9. It was the first public screen briefing regarding the new Health and Safety Legislation, and I commend the team from the NZAPG who hosted the meeting. The meeting is reviewed in detail in other articles in this magazine. It provided very valuable information and it was so important because it started the debate about the new legislation, and how it will affect the screen industry.
We should not be scared or defensive or put our heads in the sand or talk about the ‘old ways’. Everyone will have to rethink how we approach our work in a manner that ensures people come to work and return home at the end of the day safely. Is that a bad thing? Is our screen industry so important and the creative spirit so unbending that we have to die or suffer pain for the rest of our lives for our art? I hope not.
The Safety Code of Practice and The Blue Book have been the Techo Guild’s headline acts; little books carried around, thumbed through, and often consulted. We are currently looking to move these books into the digital age. ScreenSafe, (the new Safety Code of Practice) will go online by the end of March and we are currently updating The Blue Book. It is important that productions that work in NZ understand how this industry works, and having this information accessible is a key to making this a reality.
I have also spent some time with the committee reviewing The Blue Book. It is getting close to engaging producers to ratify the latest updates as our industry has evolved so much since the last publication. Practices from around the world are being considered for productions here, and we need to have an answer to these questions: such as how things work when presented with a 34-hour turnaround on a 5-day week, and 10 or 10.25 hours continuous shooting, with a running meal service for a part of the day.
This leads me to put forward a new concept to deal with the communication between the producers and the crew.
Crew reps have been the mainstay of how we communicate, and they have been a very effective method of helping to solve disputes on productions.
In the new Health and Safety Legislation, everybody’s participation in the welfare of the screen industry’s members is required. In a production with 20 or more people a safety representative is required by the Act. I believe we should combine the role of crew rep and safety rep and provide workshops to train people about the safety requirements, and how to deal with difficult situations, and also how to act as an advocate and a mediator for the voices within the production. Producers who were once worried about being dictated to by the crew, and crew that were worried if they voiced any concerns that they may not get the next job, are a thing of the past. This will no longer be acceptable. If there is an incident it is required to be reported; the chain of command will be looked at; the people involved will be scrutinised and culpability may be apportioned.
So, we need to ensure the lines of communication are open and judgement-free, so everyone benefits.
Hopefully, in the not too distant future, the Guild can provide a passport that shows a person’s qualifications, for example, drivers licence categories, forklift licence, heavy machinery qualifications, so producers and HOD’s can understand the skill level of the person they are working with. It isn’t as scary as it sounds – it is a positive – and supported by on-going workshops and skill training.
My final question is about the name of the NZ Film and Video Technicians’ Guild. I think it has, with other guilds in this industry, done tremendous work. The New Zealand Film and Video Technicians’ Guild is no longer just about technicians. It represents all the areas of the industry, so perhaps the time has come to change its name to reflect the universality of its role. Perhaps ‘The NZ Screen Industry Independent Contractor Guild’ or ‘The NZ Screen Contractors Association’ would be more appropriate, as that is the new reality of what we do, and whom we represent.
