Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit
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...the CTU, which funded the Bryson action.
holy shit, I'll just go and retrieve my jaw from off the floor.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
If you’re implying that it says Bryson was a general precedent, or that his was a typical contract, it actually says the opposite of that:
I'm not sure what you even mean by that. The employment court dismissed the industry's concerns that if Bryson's case was found to have merit, it would have had dire consequences for the industry, in that his circumstances were different from those of other workers who are indeed rightly treated as contractors. This doesn't mean that the Bryson case was irrelevant - it was so relevant in fact that they changed the law around it. Now nobody in the film industry (and not just the actors) can claim that they ought to qualify as employees even if they satisfy the tests for the status of employee stated in the Employment Relations Act. That's a victory for the guy who fought Bryson in court - can we agree on that?
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nzlemming, in reply to
This doesn’t mean that the Bryson case was irrelevant –
I don't recall anyone saying it wasn't relevant.
But "relevant" != "precedent" in any legal sense.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
But "relevant" != "precedent" in any legal sense.
It wasn't a precedent in the sense that every film industry worker will henceforth be considered an employee until proven otherwise, no. But it was certainly a precedent in that a particular industry worker managed to satisfy the employment court that his boss - Peter Jackson - was treating him like a contractor when he ought to have treated him like an employee. The law change is aimed precisely at preventing this right to appeal to the employment court for EVERY SINGLE WORKER in the industry. Including the ones who aren't happy with it nor fleece IRD with extravagant expense claims. And if you say well it doesn't matter, because almost everyone is in fact happy with being treated like a contractor, then I'd have to ask - why change the law?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
And if you say well it doesn’t matter, because almost everyone is in fact happy with being treated like a contractor, then I’d have to ask – why change the law?
In the original post for this thread, I actually expressed that view.
OTOH, the employment law specialist I interviewed on Media7 thought the law did need clarifying and said there were a number of other examples of such amendments for other employment sectors.
Anyway, the point was that Bryson’s contract was unusual and the decision can’t be generally applied to the industry. I think the Supreme Court felt moved to say so in its decision.
Anyway, I'm having a shit day and the language in this discussion has become so loaded that I really don't wish to continue it.
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Anyway, I'm having a shit day and the language in this discussion has become so loaded that I really don't wish to continue it.
'Nuff said really ;)
But...
Little man looses, big guns won, Polies are on holidays so it will be yesterdays news to morrow. Don't cha jus' love this government! Yessir!
And I'm not arguing with anyone (Craig :) -
giovanni tiso, in reply to
OTOH, the employment law specialist I interviewed on Media7 thought the law did need clarifying
Another word for "clarifying" would be "tilting employment law in favour of the employers even more than it already is". Because really in this case it's hard to see how the clarification achieves anything other than taking away workers' rights, with no counterbalancing demands on the employers whatsoever. It certainly has the merit of being simple, but.
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Ross Mason, in reply to
As I walk out the door on holiday. Did anyone notice....
...the CTU, which funded the Bryson action.
And from Peter Jackson email in Stuff yesterday.
"Unfortunately Warners have become very concerned at the grey areas in our employment laws. The situation hasn't been helped by the fact that they spent a lot of money fighting the Bryson case - unsuccessfully - in the New Zealand courts."
If Giovanni was right, it was CTU V Warner.
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And anybody who still thinks it wasn't about Bryson hasn't been paying attention, methinks.
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Neil Morrison, in reply to
My jaw is still sliding around on the floor flaunting its new-found indendence.
But I think it's a bit more than CTU vs Warners. I think the fact that the CTU was behind Bryson and that the CTU fronted for AE in such a destructive way was a bit of a coincidence but a coincidence Warners got spooked by. For good reason.
Behind the CTU and AE was Simon Whipp. He drove this piece of industrial sabotage. The CTU didn't have a clue about what was going on.
But everyday that the NZ union movement doesn't tell Whipp to go away makes me think maybe the CTU wasn't so clueless. He's now demanding an apology from Jackson, now would be the time to give him a firm indication he's not wanted.
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That's right. What better time than after this latest exposure of Jackson's tactics to make Whipp the villain even more than he already was? I mean so long as we're really determined to prove to our transnational corporate overlords that we are subjects, not citizens, which I assume to be the object of the whole exercise.
Just to be clear, Whipp's demanding an apology to Jackson not for the deception, but for claiming today in an email to Radio NZ that the blacklisting was illegal and that it was withdrawn because Actors' Equity was facing a lawsuit for damages from Warners. If those claims too turn out in fact to be false, than I'd say an apology and a retraction are probably in order.
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And if you say well it doesn’t matter, because almost everyone is in fact happy with being treated like a contractor, then I’d have to ask – why change the law?
Once you've got another $34 million on top of the already hefty tax rebates that NZ provides, you just want to go back for one more thing to see how much you really can make the PM of NZ crawl.
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In that email to Radio NZ, Jackson says that Actors Equity "had an agenda to unionise the film industry by using a grey area in employment law". That grey area presumably being what led to the Bryson case. Unless somebody would like to walk me through how it's a strawman.
In light of his public protestations at the time that it was a power grab from Whipp and all about the boycott, this clarification puts Jackson in a worse light if anything, it seems to me. But again, maybe I've missed a crucial step somewhere.
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The MEAA’s strategy was pretty much exactly what Jackson is saying as far as I can tell also. It’s not technically ‘illegal’ to try to try to get a collective agreement on behalf of employees, but it is for independent contractors. As far as anyone can tell from the public documents, the MEAA claimed to the rest of the international unions that it was black and white legal to collectively bargain on behalf of NZ actors (when signing the ratification of the MEAAs no work order). This is either a gross oversimplification or an outright obfuscation of the reality, as, in reality, pretty much all NZ actors are classed as independent contractors (although, this is a grey area, as NZ labour law is somewhat vague and as to what technically constitutes an employee vs independent contractor). The strategy was not technically illegal, but it seems pretty darn dodgy to me, particularly as NZ actors never really got a say in any of this before it happened. AE leadership seemed uncertain about what was going on in most of their public statements, and much of their membership are still unclear about exactly what happened: ‘all we ever asked for was a meeting’. To some extent I suspect the MEAA’s attitude was ‘the ends justify the means’, which has been, unfortunately, the strategy of rather too many people in this thing, but such is the reality of these kind of actions I guess.
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nzlemming, in reply to
To some extent I suspect the MEAA’s attitude was ‘the ends justify the means’, which has been, unfortunately, the strategy of rather too many people in this thing, but such is the reality of these kind of actions I guess.
Seems that Simon Whipp would get on very well with Chris Trotter...
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Further 'clarifications' from Jackson. So apparently the blacklisting was what mattered because it scared Warners, but then Warners was appeased by the law change. Although the law change in itself had nothing to do with the blacklisting, and as far as I can tell wouldn't change the legal status of such actions in the future. But then according to Jackson the blacklisting was already illegal. The thick plotens, as they say in the movies.
So, to sum up:
"This is why Warner Bros lost all confidence in filming in New Zealand, because they had just witnessed how a tiny and capricious union, manipulated by an offshore agency, could bring a multimillion production to its knees – for no legitimate reason."
He said the Government's law change "gave the studio confidence that the film could made in New Zealand without the threat of unjustified ongoing industrial action".
He keeps talking about Warners as them, you know, other people. Yet we find out they bankrolled the legal team for an employment court action against Three Foot Six which is owned by... Peter Jackson. Right.
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......bankrolled the legal team for an employment court action against Three Foot Six which is owned by... Peter Jackson. Right.
Ummmm.....No......I think.
Check the "new" name(??) "Six foot three"
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Wrong place but gotta dash and this is interesting
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Russell Brown, in reply to
He keeps talking about Warners as them, you know, other people. Yet we find out they bankrolled the legal team for an employment court action against Three Foot Six which is owned by… Peter Jackson. Right.
Three Foot Six was a company formed for the sole purpose of producing the LOTR films and is listed in all the documents I can find as being 100% owned by New Line Cinema. Three Foot Seven seems to be constituted on a similar basis to make the Hobbit films. So, yes, Warners is "them" in that sense.
They paid for the lawyers because they owned the company named in the action. For his part, Bryson was bankrolled by the CTU, which allowed him to take the case to the Supreme Court after failing to convince the Employment authority and the High Court.
The law change had nothing to to do with the blacklisting itself -- the actors didn't want to change their status as contractors. But it's not hard to imagine that Warners saw the CTU get involved in a precipitate and unorthodox industrial action and got nervous about stability. I think they were wrong, but that's probably what they were thinking.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Three Foot Six was a company formed for the sole purpose of producing the LOTR films and is listed in all the documents I can find as being 100% owned by New Line Cinema. Three Foot Seven seems to be constituted on a similar basis to make the Hobbit films. So, yes, Warners is "them" in that sense.
Yes, I see - and of course New Line is now fully part of Warners. Yet Three Foot Six is always referred to as "Jackson's company", isn't it? I mean whenever the Bryson case is mentioned in the media. Or alternatively, Bryson is referred to as a "Weta employee" (indeed Russell did so upthread). It's not making it easier to disentangle Jackson, Taylor and Warners I must say.
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nzlemming, in reply to
It's common practice for film projects/franchises to form standalone companies owned by the bigger studios. It means they have a limited liability corporate entity with its own bottom line that can hold the copyright and make the revenue or take the hit if it tanks.
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It's been the most bizarre issue for quite some time.
If the broader problem facing NZ at present is Key then the solution has nothing to do with the Labour Party, the unions or most of the self-identified left-wing pundits who have all shown themselves to be ill-informed and quite happy to wallow in their ill-informedness.
The class war is all that matters for them and they've all tried to make the facts fit their own ambitions. Never mind that there were some actual workers who stood to lose their livelihoods. They were just scabs.
There really does need to be some sort of re-think on the centre left. I don't think that's going to happen.
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What Bryson did if I am not mistaken was set out a defintion of what a contractor was and what an employee was, which I believe is a precedent. I'd have to look into it a bit further, but I believe that is why Jackson was bee in bonnet.
And one that Kate Wilkinson tried to change by saying if we call it a river it is a river, even if it is a sea. See Charles Chauvel's speech parliament for more.
Gotta love the folk on here defending Jackson/Walsh etc on the Radio NZ news, when he's catching heat for his private emails differing from his public stance. Can we just say he's the head of a major film thingy, not Mother Theresa? Ask James Cameron's wives...
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Can we just say he's the head of a major film thingy, not Mother Theresa? Ask James Cameron's wives...
WTF? If anything, James Cameron's divorces seem to be the one part of his life that are amicable and astoundingly free of nightmarish drama. Certainly on good enough terms that he managed to work with iron-jawed bitches like Gale Ann Hurd and Kathryn Bigelow after their divorces. Hell, Cameron spend more of last year's Oscar season campaigning for The Hurt Locker than his own film.
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Catching up...
only because most of the people working in the film industry have no quarrel with their status as independent contractors.
I think you may find someone does have an issue with it... a blind eye can only be turned for so long.
If you can answer “yes” to most of the following questions, you are probably an employee.
• Do you have to do the work yourself, rather than hiring someone else to do it for you?
• Can someone tell you at any time what to do on the job, or when and how to do it?
• Are you paid at a set rate (for example, hourly, weekly, monthly, or per unit of production)?
• Can you get overtime pay or penal rates?
• Do you work set hours, or a given number of hours a week or month?
• Does someone else set the standards for the amount and quality of your sales or output?
• Do you work at the premises of the person you are working for, or somewhere that person decides?
• Are other people who do the same sort of job as you treated as employees?
• Are you under an employment contract (either individual or collective), or any law that says how your relationship with your “employer” should be run?
• Are you prevented from doing work for anyone else?
• Do you have to follow the rules or procedures of the person you are working for?
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