Film

Ian Mune defends Hobbit actors

Actor and former Hobbit Ian Mune staunchly defended the actors involved in an industrial dispute with producers of the Hobbit movies.

Watch the TVNZ Breakfast clip here.

 

The Hollywood Reporter on The Hobbit

Taken from THR, by Jonathan Handel & Pip Bulbeck.

When Warner Bros. production executives touch down in New Zealand next week they'll get a welcome they'll never forget, with lobbying planned from the Kiwi prime minister, cabinet ministers and producer-director Peter Jackson - an industry-wide united front and simultaneous rallies by non-union-aligned actors in five cities up and down the country.

Their desperate mission: keep the $500 million Hobbit films in New Zealand in the aftermath of a month-long, but now-ended, boycott by actors unions across the English-speaking world and amid reports that the studio is paving the way for a move to the UK.

But it might be a lost cause.

Warners New Line unit confirmed Thursday that it is still considering shooting The Hobbit at alternative locations outside of New Zealand.

In a statement, the studio blamed NZ Actors Equity and its Australian parent - the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance - for demanding that the studio take part in union negotiations. "We have refused to do so, and will continue to refuse to do so," the statement said. "The actions of these unions have caused us substantial damage and disruption and forced us to consider other filming locations for the first time."

New Line denied reports that SAG, AFTRA and NZ Equity agreed to life their boycott of the production a number of days ago and that the studio asked them to delay the announcement. Calling that version of events "false", a New Line spokesperson said, "It was not until last night that we received confirmation of the retractions from SAG, NZ Equity and AFTRA through press reports."

Nonetheless, THR has reviewed emails provided on a confidential and U.S.-exclusive basis showing that an agreement to life the "do not work" order was actually reached Sunday Los Angeles time (Monday in NZ).

The emails do not indicate the reason for the delayed announcement.

However, Helen Kelly of New Zealand's Council of Trade Unions told THR: "As of Sunday night, Warners knew that the boycott had been lifted. We were waiting for them to issue the press release because they asked to do the first release. Why would we antagonize them?"

The New Line statement continued, "We are still awaiting retractions from the other guilds. While we have been attempting to receive an unconditional retraction of the improper Do Not Work Orders for almost a month, NZ Equity/MEAA continued to demand, as a condition of the retractions, that we participate in union negotiations with the independent contract performers, which negotiations are illegal in the opinion of the New Zealand Attorney General."

MEAA's Simon Whipp disagreed, telling THR that the union has "provided them with the legal advice that this is not the case."

Whipp added, "This week we sat down with the Screen Production and Development Association to discuss conditions of engagement of performers in New Zealand generally."

 

Read the full article here.

 

Note to Jackson: Encore Magazine

Taken from Encore.

Note to Jackson: Disney is not avoiding Australia.

Rich Ross, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, dismissed claims by New Zealand director Peter Jackson that Disney is avoiding bringing its productions to Australia due to problems with unions, but admitted that it is "challenging" due to the exchange rate.

"It's not the case [that Disney is not bringing productions due to the MEAA], and I'm not sure why anybody would talk about somebody else's company. I'm not sure why he said it; we go where it makes sense," Ross told Encore.

In one of his public statements (dated September 28), Jackson said: "I've been told that Disney are no longer bringing movies to Australia because of their frustration with the Media and Arts Alliance".

Ross said that choosing Australia as a shooting location would happen "when we have the right film and it makes sense for us to come here", from a creative and financial point of view.

The LA-based executive admitted that due to the current exchange rate, shooting in Australia is "pricey right now for us".

"We certainly go all over the world and Australia has an incredible film base and expertise ... The economics, from the exchange rate to access to Government incentives, do influence where you go. We currently have four projects shooting in the UK; they're being very aggressive about bringing production in.

"The situation in Australia makes it more challenging. There are many variables," admitted Ross.

During his visit to Sydney, Ross also discussed the company's plans for the distribution of local films: "We are interested in local production. It's about doing global business, delivered in a local way."

Questioned about the strategy moving forward, following the disappointing results of their local titles Two Fists, One Heart and Subdivision in 2009, Ross said that acquisitions will be made "when it makes sense".

"Our approach is not opportunistic, and it's not investment-based, but about properties that can help build our brand," he explained.

 

Producer and Union statements on The Hobbit

Media Release from Peter Jackson & Fran Walsh: The Hobbit

The lifting of the blacklist on The Hobbit does nothing to help the films stay in New Zealand. The damage inflicted on our film industry by NZ Equity / MEAA is long since done.

Next week Warners are coming down to NZ to make arrangements to move the production off-shore. It appears we now cannot make films in our own country - even when substantial financing is available.

The spectacle of NZ Actors' Equity suddenly cancelling their Wellington meeting, because film workers wanted to express to them their concern at losing The Hobbit, exemplifies the pure gutlessness of this small, self-centred group. They don't appear to care about the repurcussions of their actions on others, nore are they prepared to take responsibility for decisions made in their name. NZ Equity constantly refer to 'good faith' discussions but they have never acted in good faith towards our film.

Four weeks ago NZ Equity, represented by the Australian trade union, the MEAA, urged several international actor's unions to gang up on our production in an attempt to bully us into illegal collective bargaining.

MEAA's representative, Simon Whipp, admitted in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, that it was his intention to use The Hobbit as a way to 'unionise other productions' in the New Zealand film industry - presumably whether we want it or not. This unilateral decision, made by an off shore union, we assume with Equity's blessing, is the reason why our film industry is now in dire jeopardy.

NZ Equity's unjustified industrial action again The Hobbit has undermined Warner Bro's confidence in New Zealand as a stable employment environment, and they are now, quite rightly, very concerned about the security of their $500m investment. Unfortunately lifting the blacklist does nothing to help the situation. This will be the start of a domino effect, as word of NZ's unstable employment environment, registers with film investors and studios, world-wide.

Nobody denies Equity's right to represent their group of actors, but incredibly, this industrial action was taken without consultation with their own membership. These clumsy, heavy-handed tactics have put at risk the livelihoods of thousands of workers and jeapardized a potential investment of a billion plus dollars into the NZ economy.

Seemingly overnight, NZ Actors' Equity shredded the reputation of a burgeoning industry, which has been over 40 years in the making.

Remarks on television by Helen Kelly of the CTU, demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the film industry. Nothing she had to say about The Hobbit and film financing was remotely factual. Why she has suddenly become the NZ Equity spokesperson is unclear, it appears to be a case of the blind being lead by the even-more-blind.

We will continue the fight to keep the film in NZ, but ultimately this decision belongs to Warner Bro's. We are however, hugely heartened by the incredibly show of support from Wellington actors, technicians and crew. It is a reflection of the terrific pride NZ film workers have in their industry and their very real fear of losing their jobs.

 

THE CTU'S MEDIA RELEASE RESPONSE

Helen Kelly, CTU President, said today that it is important that some facts about the union stance on The Hobbit are placed before the public.

- The union is seeking basic terms and conditions such as hours, breaks, overtime payments etc.

- The union has always been prepared to agree those conditions as an industry standard rather than a collective agreement.

- The union advised Warners on Sunday (their time) that they had asked the Screen Actors Guild to life any "don't work" orders in place. A statement has been prepared by Equity but Warners have asked to control the time of the release and have delayed several days. We understand Wingnut were aware of this when they met with Technicians last night but failed to pass on this information.

- MEAA (Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance New Zealand Incorporated) is a registered union in New Zealand. They affiliate to the CTU in New Zealand and are a trans-Tasman organisation. We are used to having hundreds of trans-Tasman businesses in NZ and that appears to be perfectly acceptable. Many of our performers work in both countries so a trans-Tasman union makes perfect sense.

"These films can be made here", said Helen Kelly. "Following a meeting last week, which included Hon Gerry Brownlee, good progress is being made on developing an industry standard through improving the content and form of the current "Pink Book". Last night's meeting was ironically to begin dicussions with Equity members on that process. It will now have to be rescheduled."

Helen Kelly said, "NZ performers want the movie made here as much as anyone, but let's get all the facts on the table about taxes, subsidies, and other issues - rather than just blaming the union for asking to meet on basic terms and conditions".

 

EQUITY UPDATE: Gerry Brownlee's Hobbit Statement

Media statement by Hon Gerry Brownlee on behalf of SPADA, Actors' Equity and CTU

The Screen Production and Development Association (SPADA), Actors' Equity and Council of Trade Unions representatives met today in a meeting facilitated by Minister for Economic Development Gerry Brownlee.

It was a useful and productive discussion.

The parties have agreed to work together to update the conditions of engagement for performers in the New Zealand screen production industry.

The parties believe this process will help to ensure New Zealand remains an attractive screen production enviroment.

No further comment will be made.

SPADA
Actors' Equity
Council of Trade Unions

 

Gordon Campbell on the end game for The Hobbit

by Gordon Campbell, from www.scoop.co.nz

The two main issues that will decide Warners’ decision about where to shoot The Hobbit  are both inching towards a resolution. Neither involve the actors’ union dispute which has always been a sideshow – mainly because the cost of reaching a compromise deal on wages and conditions would be chump change for Hollywood. The two factors that matter are (a) the production incentives available in New Zealand compared to elsewhere in the world. This is what Philippa Boyens means when she says Warners are‘ running the numbers” on the five or six locations now in the running for the location shoot and (b) the late intrusion of the 74 year old corporate raider Carl Icahn into the sale of debt-burdened MGM, which owns a major stake in The Hobbit project.

As I’ll explain below, Icahn will not be able to derail what is now a done deal between MGM and Spyglass, but he seems to be delaying the announcement of the MGM sale, and the subsequent greenlight for The Hobbit. The rate at which Icahn has been buying up MGM’s senior debt means that it will cost an arm and a leg for Spyglass and the re-constituted MGM to buy him out, which will in turn make those production incentives even more important than they are already. New Zealand stands to lose in any strict number crunching of the incentive money it can put on the table – because the Key government has allowed our global competitiveness to fall behind other countries, and we may be about to pay the price for that complacency.

Even so, a lot of the emotion needs to be taken out of the issue. The rhetoric of New Zealand “losing” The Hobbit has always been overheated. All along, what we have stood to lose was only the location shoot. The pre-production work is already under way at local work-shops in Miramar and similarly, the highly remunerative post-production work was always going to be done at Weta Digital.

Yes, it would be nice to do the location shoot here as well. But get a grip. Did we “ lose” The Lovely Bones because some of its location shoot was done in Pennsylvania? No, we didn’t. Weta Digital is the jewel in the crown for New Zealand, because that is what lured Avatar here, and it is what will bring other major projects here in future. It is also what will fuel the knowledge industry spin-offs in video gaming and other related industries. And to repeat : Weta Digital was never going to ‘lose’The Hobbit, where-ever it happened to be shot. The alleged threat has been viewed as an industrial relations conflict (and has been deliberately framed as us “losing the production) because it has suited the producers, their lobby group (Spada ) and the politicians to do so. The mainstream media has been more than happy to oblige.

Put it this way. If we “lose” The Hobbit would that mean that the production would not be putting in for any funds whatsoever from the Large Budget Screen Production Grants Scheme? Hardly. I would expect New Zealand will still be paying a sizeable sum to The Hobbit under the LBSPGS, wherever it is shot. In fact, it would be an interesting exercise to break down the ratio of the production costs between (a) the location shoot (b) pre-production and (c) post production, and the potential LBSPGS claim for those last two components.
To the government’s relief though, very little attention has been paid to the film production incentives that New Zealand offers, which have ceased to be globally competitive. New Zealand’s main incentive is the LBSPGS which was created by Jim Anderton back when he was Minister of Economic Development and the responsibility for it has now devolved to his successor, Gerry Brownlee. However, in a speech to a Film NZ networking function in May 2009, Brownlee made it clear that while the Key government would keep the scheme, it would be at its current rate:

Our competitors continue to work to attract productions to their countries. So while we don’t want to engage in a ‘race to the bottom’ within higher and higher incentives the next step is to cultivate a regulatory environment that makes it easy for filmmakers to come to New Zealand, and film in our locations, use our facilities, and hire our workers, and engage our talent pool.

Note Brownlee’s priorities – don’t increase the incentives, but make it easier for foreign studios to hire our workers. Currently New Zealand offers through the LBSPGS a 15% refund on the local spend by foreign film productions. As I pointed out last week, countries in Eastern Europe (and elsewhere) now offer far more generous deals. Ironically, the government was warned recently about the importance of film incentives to the Hollywood executives now able to pick and choose where in the world to base their projects – and that warning came from Sir Peter Jackson himself,

In his July review of the Film Commission, Jackson slammed the Treasury for its complacency. He cited a recent report in which Treasury continued to rely on its own 2005 evaluation that ‘Very large budget films that come to New Zealand usually did so for quality and creative reasons, rather than economic reasons.’ Treasury’s belief, Jackson maintained, was ‘simply untrue.’ Without the LBSPGS, Jackson continued, “Universal would have insisted King Kong be moved to Canada in the blink of an eye. There’s nothing this country offers that justifies the budget hit Universal would have taken by basing the film in a country with no production incentives.”

The same logic surely, still applies. It is hard to see why the Hollywood studios making The Hobbit wouldn’t shift it to Europe or North America, or Britain ‘ in the blink of an eye’ if they thought they could get a better deal on incentives. Yes, our exchange rate gives us a 30% edge on the US dollar – far better than the 5% edge on offer in say, Australia – but even that exchange rate advantage is less than in the LOTR days. Jackson is the only factor still keeping us competitive. The real political question is – what is Brownlee now going to do about the uncompetitive 15% that we have out there these days as a lure?

Last week, I pointed out on Scoop that Serbia is offering 15-25% rebates on local spend, and the Czech Republic is offering 20%. Hungary is also offering 20%. In addition, Jackson provided a long list of foreign film production incentive schemes (they can be found on pages 68-69 of his Film Commission review) that exceed what New Zealand has to offer. This recent Time magazine article on the film industry in Hungary (“Hooray for Hungary – Is Budapest the New Hollywood of Europe?”) shows just how sophisticated some our competition is getting.
For much of the past week, the Jackson camp has been running a thin argument that it couldn’t do a deal on The Hobbit because that would set a precedent for the entire local film industry. Supposedly, every aspect of union coverage agreed to on this huge two film project would automatically carry over to every small budget New Zealand film made by Taika Waititi, by Gaylene Preston and by film-makers even further down the food chain.

Supposedly, continuous employment with Jackson’s Three Foot Seven company stretched over two films for a period of years would be comparable under the law, to the occasional week long shoots that characterise so many New Zealand productions, even though it is only in that hand-to-mouth context that the ‘ independent contractor’ status makes any sense. Call me cynical, but I don’t think the makers of an elephantine project like The Hobbit should be trying to hide behind this particular mouse.

If Philippa Boyens doesn’t want the deal on The Hobbit to become a binding precedent for a struggling local industry… well duh. Write words to that effect into the contracts for The Hobbit and ring fence the wages and conditions. Newsflash: it is not unknown for court rulings to be ring fenced with statements to the effect that no precedent can be deemed to apply (or are to be inferred) from the particular findings. At most, an agreement on wages and conditions for The Hobbit would set an aspirational precedent only – and the status quo could be defended if any employee on The Hobbit wanted to be treated as such on the next shoestring local production. A compromise deal on wages and conditions for The Hobbit might carry over automatically only if and when the Film Commission gets around to greenlighting its next $212 million film project. That may take a while.

If one took the Boyens/Jackson arguments at face value – i.e. as anything other than a bargaining tactic – one would have to conclude that unions have little or no place in the film industry, and that workers in that industry should be content with whatever largesse their employers deem appropriate, and bestow on them. Ironic really, that the most cutting edge of our knowledge industries seems to be insistent that its industrial relations should be conducted on terms that hark back to the Victorian era. The deal on residuals for instance, that Jackson is said to be offering to non-Screen Actors Guild members may turn out to be as generous as he says it is – but really, that is no substitute for allowing workers to negotiate fair wages and conditions. Industrial relations should not be run as a charity. Whatever the benign intent, the residuals deal has smacked of the box of vegetables left on the doorstep by the feudal lord at Christmas time, for each of his faithful serfs. Mind you, at the Wellington actors’ meeting in particular, there seemed no shortage of people willing to tug their forelocks in gratitude, or in fear.
The MGM sale

As mentioned, the MGM sale is crucial to the outcome on The Hobbit, and to the ability of the production to meet its self-imposed deadline of being in theatres by December 2012. The production cannot be formally greenlit until the deal is concluded – and as I indicated in mid July Spyglass has now emerged as the leading suitor, and letters of intent have reportedly been exchanged. This is why pre-production on The Hobbit has proceeded so confidently. MGM’s latest debt repayment extension has been rolled over until October 29.

However, the 11th hour advent of Carl Icahn seems to have stymied the public announcement. Back in July, Icahn was locked in an internal boardroom war with the other directors of Lions Gate, a major art house company that makes the Mad Men television series (it also made the film Precious) in which he owns a 33% stake. Icahn’s motivation back then was to block Lions Gate from bidding seriously for MGM. Now however, he has jumped the fence and has bought up some 10% of MGM debt and is – ostensibly – trying to get MGM to merge with Lions Gate.

While no one can predict Icahn’s ultimate game plan, the more likely outcome would seem to be that the new owners of MGM would have to buy him off. And surely, if you or I were Carl Icahn, we might be tempted to angle for a premium for our foregone share in the profits from The Hobbit and from the next James Bond movie, in which MGM holds the ahem, lion’s share. New Zealand should be regarding these manoeuvres with trepidation. The mounting costs will be making its 15% production incentive look scrawnier by the day to the anxious bean counters in Hollywood.
Looking back over the past fortnight, it has been extraordinary to see the producers and their lobby group claiming to be bound by the conditions that they have imposed on the work force in the New Zealand film industry. In his review of the Film Commission, Jackson was highly critical of the producer-driven nature of our film industry. Not in this instance, evidently.

As an aside, The Hobbit furore has also been an interesting case study of how the mainstream media has seemed content to be a passive conduit for the P.R. statements of the celebrity players – whose claims have largely been taken as read, no matter how self serving. Only on the blogosphere has there been any attempt at weighing the competing positions, or at getting behind the posturing on both sides of the fence – notably by The Standard and also I hope, by Scoop.

In passing, a special dinosaur award for service to the anti-union cause though, has to be awarded to Rosemary McLeod, who invoked the spectre of organized labour – the boilermakers, cooks and stewards and watersiders were all hauled back by her from the editorial grave – to intimate that The Hobbit production and our tourism industry were all now under threat from the combined might of Jennifer Ward-Lealand and her army of dues-paying orcs. To combat this menace, McLeod volunteered to be a scab for Jackson, and bring her own packed lunch on set if need be. Come to think of it…there may be a job going as stand-in for those hobbits held captive by the Elf King, and who get nailed into barrels and tossed in the river.

Once the dust on this particular project has settled – and unions are finally able to do what unions do elsewhere in the work force – I don’t think the government’s film incentives will be able to avoid critical scrutiny for much longer. As things stand, Peter Jackson is carrying the government and the film industry on his back. Most of the foreign film projects coming here are despite the level of our production incentives, and not because of them – and the bulk of that traffic these days is post-production activity bound for Weta. Film NZ might be able to prove me wrong, but New Zealand does not seem to be getting the kind of location shoots it used to attract only a few short years ago.

If that situation is ever going to turn around, Jackson deserves a break. Gerry Brownlee and Bill English need to raise the LBSPGS to 20%, immediately. The Greens – who earlier this came up with the moronic idea of capping the scheme – need to be told that New Zealand will receive back far more in local spending on wages and downstream services from the LBSPGS than it pays out on film incentives. The LBSPGS is a virtuous grant scheme paid out after the money has been spent here, and not a shonky tax dodge that raids the revenue beforehand.

So far though, Treasury has been able to maintain its ideological hostility to such incentives, and the government has been able to dodge the political fallout – mainly because the mainstream media has been happy to ensure the union demands on The Hobbit keep copping the flak. Genuine transparency is needed. If Warners do finally choose to shift the location shoot for The Hobbit out of New Zealand, we need to be aware for the true rationale behind that decision – union organizing, or the larger incentives now available in Europe and elsewhere? And what sums, if any, will The Hobbit production still expect to take from the LBSPGS?

Routinely, we have been left in the dark on such issues, mainly because the media doesn’t ask, and the film-makers and politicians have reasons of their own to fudge the details that they release to the public. Eight years on, we still do not know the net benefit of the tax incentives that we paid for LOTR. Essentially, we have come no distance at all from what I wrote in 2003, when this stuff already seemed like ancient history :

In the January [2003 Onfilm] issue, Jackson alleged that the $200 million figure routinely cited for the tax breaks is a “ludicrous” and “irresponsible figure” that was “published once” and its truth never subsequently analysed. Furthermore: “Cullen knows it’s not true and yet he’s been capitalising on that figure.” The government has allowed such nonsense to be perpetuated, Jackson believes, to try to give tax breaks a bad name. According to him, the tax breaks were less than the $110 million paid in PAYE tax by the production.

A highly frustrating situation for the taxpayer, who might feel like tossing both of them into the cracks of Mt Doom. We have Jackson saying that the tax breaks were really small – but he’s not “allowed” to be specific – and Cullen suggesting that they were really big, but he can’t be specific, either, and certainly not to the taxpayers footing the bill. At the premiere of Return of the King, it was left to the ever-gracious Viggo Mortensen to thank the taxpayers of New Zealand for making the film possible.

For years [the public] has sought clarity on this point. First, we had to establish that the tax breaks existed, then figure out their likely size and how the deals worked. The figure of circa $200 million – roughly one third of a $600 million budget – was not plucked from the air. It was the IRD’s own shorthand estimate, stated in interviews with them and based on the company tax rate. We may never know the exact figure, although $217 million has been cited to me by government sources. My final attempt in mid 2003 to prise the net situation regarding LOTR from Economic Development Minister Jim Anderton hit the usual stonewall: “We don’t know.”

Such declarations of ignorance seem incredible. How, then, does the government devise rational policy in this area?

Answer: it doesn’t. It just crosses its fingers, thanks God for Peter Jackson, and leaves the fate of the industry to the winds of chance.
 

The Press Opinion: Pride, shame at heart of dispute

by Chris Trotter, from The Press 5/10/10


Pride - that's what this dispute over The Hobbit is all about.

The pride we all felt when Sir Peter Jackson and his team cleaned up at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles.

The pride we all shared in the world's astonishment at New Zealand's natural beauty - which Jackson's award- winning trilogy so magnificently revealed.

The pride we all took in showing our acting talent to the rest of the world. Talent we'd all grown up with: from Pukemanu's Ian Mune to Shortland Street's Craig Parker.

The pride we should all be feeling right now that so many of the world's great actors are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with workers in our own film and television industry to win wages and conditions we can all be proud of.

But this dispute over The Hobbit is also about shame.

The shame Jackson should feel at using his enormous wealth to launch a very public pre-emptive strike against the members of NZ Actors Equity.

Even by New Zealand standards, Equity is a tiny union, with barely 600 members and very limited resources. It was to offset these weaknesses that it voted to become an autonomous part of the much larger, Australasian, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance - the MEAA.

It was the MEAA that Jackson, shamelessly playing to anti-Australian sentiment, described as union "bully boys".

With his undoubted talent for storytelling, Jackson was thus able to frame Equity's attempt to secure a minimum set of wage rates and conditions for performers and technicians involved in the production of The Hobbit as some sort of greed-driven power grab against New Zealand's struggling film industry.

The inevitable outcome, warned Jackson, was that the production of The Hobbit would be taken offshore to "eastern Europe".

To their shame, many New Zealand journalists and commentators took Jackson's carefully crafted version of events as the gospel truth. Expressions of solidarity communicated to Equity by fraternal performers' unions around the world were translated as a "boycott" of The Hobbit.

In a shameful inversion of the truth, those wielding all the power in these yet-to- begin negotiations - Jackson and the multitude of Hollywood production houses and studios backing The Hobbit project - were presented by the news media as the helpless victims of a global cabal of greedy actors and overbearing unions.

That The Hobbit had in fact fallen victim to the financial problems plaguing the MGM film studio - problems which played no small part in causing the film's original director, Guillermo Del Toro, to walk away from the project, and which, with the onset of the global financial crisis, left the funding side of The Hobbit in serious disarray - was scarcely mentioned in the news media's coverage.
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Nor was the fact that the National-led Government, by refusing to lift the level of state support for New Zealand's film and television industry to match that of the Czech Republic's or Serbia's, was much more likely to drive The Hobbit's production offshore than Equity.

To make this shameful situation even worse, National's Attorney-General (also its Minister of Arts and Heritage), Chris Finlayson, released a legal opinion from Crown Law purporting to show that any collective agreement negotiated between The Hobbit's producers and the "independent contractor" members of Equity would be illegal.

Not only is Finlayson's highly tendentious interpretation of the Commerce Act hotly disputed by Equity's own legal experts, it also highlights just how low the National-led Government is prepared to go to weaken the position of organised labour in this country.

Equating individual actors - some of the lowest-paid workers in New Zealand - with the real, corporate monopoly targets of the anti- price-fixing provisions of the Commerce Act is shameful enough.

But exploiting those provisions to effectively strip Equity of the right to bargain for better wages and conditions on behalf of its members is not only shameful - it's just plain wrong.

At stake in this dispute over The Hobbit is not merely the fate of what promised to be a fantastic cinema experience.

Also at stake is how New Zealanders see themselves.

Do the 1000 or so signatories to the Facebook petition backing Jackson's position experience no sense of shame when they hear their country's world-beating actors and technicians referred to as "Mexicans with cellphones"?

Are they proud to be backing a "race to the bottom" in terms of the wages and conditions New Zealanders can expect to be offered?

I would hate to think so.

I would rather think of my fellow citizens as people who are proud of their country's egalitarian traditions; proud of those willing to take a stand against unfair treatment; and, most of all, proud of those talented men and women who, on stage and screen, show the world what a great thing it is to be a New Zealander.
 

Govt shouldn't take sides on Hobbit - CTU

from the New Zealand Herald, 30/9/10

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is fuming at the Government for siding with Sir Peter Jackson's stance on the union dispute surrounding The Hobbit movies.

Last week, the Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), which New Zealand Actors Equity is allied with, said there had to be a boycott of the movies after the makers refused to enter a union-negotiated agreement.

Sir Peter and the studios countered that because actors were independent contractors, New Zealand law prohibited collective bargaining.

Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Chris Finlayson said yesterday that the Crown Law Office advised that movie producers were prevented by the Commerce Act from entering into a union-negotiated agreement with independent contractors.

Mr Finlayson said the MEAA needed to note that New Zealand employment law was different to Australia's.

But CTU president Helen Kelly said the legal issues could be sorted out within days and were just a red herring from Sir Peter.

"The minister hasn't even talked to the union about what they want. He is basically siding with Peter Jackson when he should be facilitating talks between the parties."

It was a simple issue of a union seeking to negotiate with an employer which the CTU saw every day - only this time it had the glitz and glamour of the film industry, Ms Kelly said.

The MEAA claimed actors had been working under contracts providing no minimum guarantees of wages or working conditions, no residual payments and no cancellation payments.

Sir Peter has accused the actors' union of a power grab and warned that production of the two films could be moved from New Zealand to Eastern Europe.

"If he (Peter Jackson) moves the films...the unions are going to follow him. If they just talked then there are many things they could agree on and that's the pathetic thing about his approach," Ms Kelly told NZPA.

"Chris Finlayson as Minister of the Arts needs to get involved and get the parties talking.

I don't care who the hero is but someone needs to get them together."

-NZPA  

NZ Actors Equity Press Release: The Hobbit

29 September 2010

Four hundred actors attended a meeting in Auckland last night to discuss the requirements for minimum terms and conditions for the engagement of performers on The Hobbit. At the close of that meeting, the following statement was made by Jennifer Ward-Lealand, president of NZ Actors’ Equity.

“As a result of tonight’s meeting New Zealand Actors’ Equity members have overwhelmingly resolved that its delegation continue to seek a meeting with the producers of The Hobbit, and to hold negotiations in good faith on the terms and conditions for performers working on the production.

We have no desire to jeopardise the production or create instability in any way. Our members are simply seeking fair and equitable employment terms and conditions for New Zealand actors – the same terms that their colleagues elsewhere in the world enjoy.

We believe a solution can be found by sitting down together with the producers, and talking through the issues.

We all have the same goal in mind – to get The Hobbit made, here in New Zealand.

Until we reach a fair and equitable solution, we recommend that all performers wait before accepting any engagement on The Hobbit.”

ENDS


Frances Walsh
Industrial Organiser
NZ Actors' Equity  

NZ Herald Editorial: Film Industry needs to put a price on Talent

editorial from The New Zealand Herald, 29/9/10


An industrial dispute between the makers of The Hobbit and an actors' union is causing palpitations in the local film industry.

There are dire predictions about what will happen if the prequels to the Lord of the Rings trilogy end up being shot, as executive producer Sir Peter Jackson has warned, in Eastern Europe.

"We could be not just losing these films but also our ability to attract international film productions into the future," said Film New Zealand chief executive Gisella Carr.

The production of the two movies, in themselves, would be worth millions of dollars to the economy, not to speak of offering hundreds of jobs to New Zealanders.

Much also rides on the film industry in terms of the image New Zealand projects, a fact recognised by the input of taxpayer dollars.

But this means the industry should be based on a solid foundation. If its viability depends on offering the lowest costs to film-makers from around the world, there are questions to be asked.

Operating on such a basis means there is always the danger of being undercut by a competitor, as evidenced by the fate of some countries that offered attractive subsidies to lure multinational companies to their shores.

Sir Peter's reference to Eastern Europe suggests the local film industry shares that feature.

He implies that companies such as Warner Brothers, which is financing The Hobbit, are attracted here not by New Zealanders' film-making skills or even the spectacular scenery but by the low cost of production.

Other countries, having seen what the Lord of the Rings achieved for New Zealand, are only too ready to participate in what Film NZ describes as an "intensely competitive" environment.

A significant part of those costs, especially when shoots extend over years, rather than months, is the payment of actors and crew.

In this dispute, an Australian union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, which is allied to New Zealand Actors' Equity, is claiming the makers of The Hobbit have refused to enter into a union-negotiated agreement that would provide minimum guarantees of wages, working conditions and suchlike.

It has advised its members not to accept work on the films.

As with all such industrial disputes, the battle-lines have been quickly drawn.

Stars such as Sir Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett, who are reportedly taking part in The Hobbit, are supporting a boycott, while the industry has thrown its support behind Sir Peter.

There is an element of predictability in all this. The Lord of the Rings trilogy earned $4.2 billion worldwide at the box office.

Many local performers probably feel they did not see their fair share of that. They are now seeking wages and conditions that are applicable elsewhere, except perhaps in Eastern Europe.

In a blatant piece of grandstanding, Sir Peter has tried to damn their demands by seizing on the presence of the Australian union. It was, he said, a "bully boy". But it would not have become involved unless requested by local actors.

It can be argued that New Zealand, because of its geographical isolation, must provide a low-cost environment to attract big-budget film-makers.

This means actors and crew must settle for less than they would earn in Hollywood for the greater good of the country and to preserve work opportunities for themselves.

But if the industry relies on this, it will always have an uphill struggle. There will always be other countries ready to offer better deals and more generous subsidies.

The industry must, at some stage, come to rely on the talent and skills in its ranks to attract film-makers. If it cannot, it will, inevitably, lose out more and more to Eastern Europe or some other johnny-come-lately.