Rate Card Reform
Now that the spectre of the pandemic seems like it’s (hopefully) in the rear mirror for the foreseeable future, we can almost take a breath and start to focus on other things and perhaps with a longer-term view look more to the future and at things we can do to better ourselves and our industry.
One such endeavour that the Screen Industry Guild has taken on that I want to focus on is the Rate Card “Guidelines” project that was initiated a couple of years ago and is now just reaching fruition of its initial scope of work.
This project came out of a desire to have a more transparent, accessible, and unified Screen Industry rate setup in NZ, initially looking at the example of BECTU in the UK. I had spent years watching Screen Industry rates across many departments not keep up with even our previous low inflation rate, sometimes flatlining for several years then having a jump to try to catch up to the great displeasure of producers who are trying to budget as tightly as they can.
The key is to initially focus on real and accurate data collection of the rates so we can see them clearly for what they are, compare them across departments and also track them over time in relation to inflation. It’s only by having this accurate data over time will we have the tools to have conversations about parity, maintaining our standard of living, and keeping this an industry that is an attractive career option for people in the future.
It seems to me having accessible and transparent rate guidelines can help both crew and producers by having more stable rates over time and being able to have honest discussions about where a crew member sits within the rates matrix. We need to have the ability to track rates against inflation to gradually adjust over time and have both NZ and offshore projects more likely to start with an ability to fund the crew at appropriate levels.
At its simplest, the overall crew rates are the aggregation of thousands of individual rate negotiations that happen in every project, every year that all add up to the overall rates crew are paid. Thousands of little hands of poker being played by crew and productions that don’t need to be clouded in uncertainty and mystery. And this is the coal face where rates still need to be set in these negotiations and the need to be real, and with better data, they can come more often to fair and equitable solutions.
By tracking rates over time, having accessible comparisons of where they should move each year adjusted for inflation, and having the bright light of transparency over the whole paradigm, we can hopefully have a future where screen industry rates can increase in an orderly fashion matching the rising costs we face, crew can maintain their standard of living over time, and productions can have better data to more valid and accurate budgeting.
Getting this started, and getting the first set of data, and ensuring that data is as correct as possible is initially the hardest challenge. After that, we need to revisit and collect the data every couple of years to be able to track and chart crew rates in NZ. Only then, over time, can we use this information to ask and answer the important questions about fairness, parity, and value.
Brendon Durey.
