Posts by Peter Cox
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Something has (I think) been added to the actor's equity site to the Friday 1st press release.
“Advice we have received today from Miriam Dean QC, a senior barrister specialising in competition law, confirms our views that:
“There’s no legal impediment to negotiating fair wages and terms for actors taken on as employees.
“Nothing in the Act prohibits us from having some meaningful engagement with the producers on non-price terms for actors taken on as independent contractors, such as rolling credits to acknowledge New Zealand actors' input into the movie.
"Nor does the Act prohibit us from discussing pricing in general terms with the producers to enable us to help our independent contractor members in their individual negotiations with producers. The Union accepts that these could only be recommended prices - nothing more.Either I'm losing my mind (always possible) or that wasn't there before. But anyway, that's a bit clearer at least.
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Was nice of him to link through the Standard as the bastion of sensible discussion on this...
However, I must admit the thread he's linked through to is starting to get a bit towards the nub of the issue. Aside from Irishbill's lapses into personal attacks of course.
(of course, I'm probably just being optimistic and at any second it will just dissolve into outright chaos and hysteria)
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In a positive note, there are still a LOT of very reasonable actors who are engaging with this debate more actively.
Anyway, and on that note (it's an actor friend who informed me of this): The Court Report is going to have a debate entitled: 'Is there a legal solution to The Hobbit dispute?'
The actor describes it as:
'We deal with the real legal and business cases for both sides of the
Hobbit argument, without getting emotional!'Looking forward to it.
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Yeah, I gotta admit that part in particular kinda blows my mind.
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I think the only person who can call off the boycott is Simon Whipp, not Equity's Frances Walsh, or JWL...
It's not as simple as that unfortunately.
Basically, the only way they could do this is for the MEAA to go back and tell the SAG and other member affiliates of the FIA that the initial stop work order was improperly created and void it as a result.
Which I'm not sure the MEAA is that keen to charge out and do.
I guess the suggestion some people are making is that's what should happen, and that the reason for voiding the stop work order would be something like 'due to unforseen complications with NZ legislation'??
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Mate, it took me about 70 posts to figure that out.
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Writers are generally independent contractors around the world except for the US and Canada.
From what I understand from my fellow Guilds there are some legislative reasons for this that are unique to every country. These legislations are constantly under attack and revision though. Mostly though it comes down to the reasons listed above. In the US and Canada they basically believe that their ability to collectively bargain outweighs the various tax advantages, etc.
Why are New Zealand Actors classed as contractors rather than employees? (The only place that does so except for Canada, apparently) To be honest, I suspect they've never had a real discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of either option. I'm not sure why Actor's Equity haven't gone to their members about it. The issue has been right up in their grills for a few years now.
PS If they have gone to their members and they made a decision about this than I apologise in full. If any Actor's Equity member floating about the forum could clear that up, I'd be mighty grateful.
PPS It's very interesting that the Canadian actors are contractors while the writers are employees; the exact opposite to how it is here. They do, admittedly have some different issues to consider in terms of their location next to the US, and relative ease to work there compared to us, so I suspect that's played a large part in it.
The further you get into union jurisdictional issues and the ability of people to work in different countries, under different contracts, the murkier this all becomes. The various guilds at the IAWG are currently involved in some pretty serious discussion about those issues at the moment.
Which makes it all the more uncomfortable for all of us to see the way that the MEAA has apparently been operating in regard to its NZ Guild.
There will be very interesting conversations surrounding this at the next IAWG meeting.
Can't tell you much about the techos or director's guilds.
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Rick Shera, thanks for that: very helpful and clear way of putting it.
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All things to think about, and downsides of employee status that I'm sure no-one has pointed out to the members of NZ Actors' Equity.
From what I've understood of the situation they're not aiming to place themselves in employee status at all, i.e. they've already looked at the issues you've stated above, and decided employee status was not a viable option. Though I'm not sure if they would have talked that through in any great detail with the members.
But that's all just pretty much guess work from various statements AE members have made rather than something I'm sure about.
I was also under the impression there was also be some legislative barriers to just 'deciding' to be termed an employee when you're effectively acting as a independent contractor, but it's not something I'm very certain about either.
But yeah, the basic rule is that if you want to collectively bargain you have to be an employee, with all the accompanying obligations that comes with that status, and you lose a lot of advantages that come with being an independent contractor. You can't have it both ways.
From memory, Craig Parker talked about that reasonably succinctly in 'The Nation' interview, which makes me think that at least he understands that issue pretty well.
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I suspect their position hasn't changed since then.
Unless dozens of people including the crown law office telling them it's effectively illegal to do so has started to change their mind.
But hopefully the CTU/Govt will find a way to make it all work. I'm sure there's a way to get both SPADA and AE to the table.