Contracts, Deals and Safety

In recent months, as work in the TV and film industry has ramped up, Techos’ Guild executive officer Karla Rodgers has received many calls relating to contract, deal memo and safety issues. Here’s Karla’s thoughts on these important matters.

Deal memos: Now what did we agree again?

If you have not received a deal memo before you start work then email the production with your understanding of the key points discussed. Rate of pay, hours of work, work week, turnaround, public holidays etc. Ask the production to email you back to confirm that you have interpreted the terms correctly, or not. In your email indicate that if you do not hear back from the production before you start work you will work strictly to The Blue Book guidelines until written confirmation of your deal is received.

Contract: Did you read before you signed?

Contracts can be hard to read and interpret. As previously advised, crew need to get organised with a crew rep. There appears to be some misconception that productions do not like crew reps. The reality I am receiving from productions is that they would rather deal with one or two people than every individual crew particularly when issues arise, as they often do. The crew rep (or better yet crew reps) need to start as early as possible. Often construction are the first ones on board. Organise a crew rep then – maybe later get another once the production is close to fully crewed. Ensure as a group that you read your contracts and do not hesitate to question any areas that appear to be unclear. There have been incidences where contracts may look the same as contracts you have had in the past but details such as ‘turnaround,’ ‘public holiday’ etc have been changed. So make sure you read the fine print and check the pertinent points such as rate of pay/hours of work/work week, turnaround/public holidays etc. It is your responsibility to be aware what you are signing up to. The Guild cannot help you if you have not read and signed your contract. You are much stronger if you work together, particularly if your contract throws a curve ball, as a group you are in a better position to negotiate. Additionally remember, that once you have invoiced and received your first wages deposit, whether or not you have signed your contract or deal memo, that by accepting payment you have effectively accepted the contract or deal memo.

Safety: It starts well before they call “action”

The area of safety that has been brought to the Guild’s attention relate to the crew who are on the job first predominantly construction and art department. In these early stages, safety can often be somewhat overlooked with work often being off site or well away from the production office. More than often a safety officer has not been contracted. Construction, working at heights and art department with chemicals in fact pose some of the greater risks in the industry. As mentioned earlier a good portion of this work is conducted in pre-production. It is the production’s responsibility to minimise risk and show that they have taken every practical step to do so. If this has been overlooked then as a crew member be pro-active and make a noise as you should not be put at risk. Ask production to send a safety officer into your area of work to assess and identify areas of risk and put a safety plan in place, before you start work. Put your request in writing. If no safety officer has been contracted for the production then insist they contract someone for the day to assess your work space. This is a practical and reasonable request. The production schedule is not an excuse. It is not acceptable to wait for the safety officer who may not be due to start until closer to the first shooting days. If this is not done, you as a contractor have shown your attempt to minimise risk and the production will have shown that they failed to minimise risk. It is morally your responsibility as a crew member to minimise risk.