Aussie actors seek union with NZ

A Transtasman plan to unionise actors and lift pay and conditions for New Zealand's professional performers has brought a dire prediction of permanent damage to the local film industry.

Though our top actors may be strutting the silver screen for top dollar in some of Hollywood's biggest productions, back home local stars fronting the cameras are being told the best way to improve their pay is to join a new union.

But long-time agent-to-the-stars Robert Bruce says actors will put the industry and their livelihoods at risk if they vote in the next couple of months to join the Australian actors' union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

Not only is the industry in this country basking in the success of internationally acclaimed local productions such as Whale Rider and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, actors' pay-rates compare favourably with those overseas, according to Bruce.

He says $500 a day is typical for an actor working on a major television drama - more than they would get for a major series in Australia and not much less, with current exchange rates, than the US$500 ($701) a day their American counterparts would earn.

Bruce - whose clients include international stars Temuera Morrison and Cliff Curtis along with doyens of the local scene Ilona Rogers, Mark Hadlow, George Henare and Elizabeth and Raymond Hawthorne - is, as he puts it, vehement in his opposition to the Sydney-based MEAA representing our 600-700 professional actors.

At present only about 200 belong to a union. NZ Equity was too small to survive under the 1991 Employment Contracts Act, which required registered unions to have at least 1000 members, so it merged with the National Distribution Union.

Now that union is actively promoting a new home for them. The MEAA has allocated a $200,000-plus budget to form a NZ Equity branch of its own 22,000-member union and employ staff in this country.

Bruce says our success is partly attributable to Australia's demise. Private investment in the industry has halved and it has only a third of the productions it previously enjoyed.

"Australia has huge studios in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast that are sitting idle. They're not getting the big productions. They go to Romania, South Africa, Canada; they come here. Australia has been left behind."

He blames the MEAA for being too hardball in its fight for better pay and conditions, succeeding only in driving productions away.

Bruce gets regular calls from Australian actors looking for work here, while his own clients recently turned down parts on three major Australian television series because the pay rates were diabolical.

"There's a lot of allegations from Equity and some other actors who regard every producer as the enemy, that these guys are out to screw us. Well it's not quite like that. It's not an easy business. It is certainly not an easy business for a producer.

"Look at the River Queen - it took Vincent [Ward] seven years to get that up. It took 11 years to get Whale Rider up. This is why I'm so vehement about it. We're getting noticed. People know where we are in the world stage. That is fantastic."

But over in Sydney, MEAA national director Simon Whipp regards claims about the ailing Australian industry as fantasy on Bruce's part.

"The offshore section of our industry continues to grow at an exponential rate," he says. "We have from the USA Charlotte's Web, Ghostrider and Aquamarine, and Superman. Disney has confirmed a production for later in the year. We also have a Chinese TV series, a Japanese film and an Indian film in addition to the slate of Australian productions and co-productions."

Whipp says the foreign productions in Australia since the mid-80s have been made under the same employment agreement for actors "and this policy has obviously not harmed the growth of the industry".

He says the real issue for New Zealand actors is whether they should have to continue to work in their own country alongside, but on substantially inferior contracts to, actors who are members of the United States Screen Actors' Guild.

"Do they believe they are inferior performers or do they believe, as we do, that they're just as good as their international colleagues and entitled to work on equivalent contracts the way Australian performers do?"

He says the guild has begun enforcing Australian MEAA contracts on Australian actors working in New Zealand, meaning for the filming of In My Father's Den, Miranda Otto was on an Australian contract while the rest of the cast were on (inferior) New Zealand contracts.

Bruce accepts that pay rates for actors have not moved significantly in the past 15 years, but says that has been the case virtually everywhere. Unionised actors working on collective agreements would also lose the tax advantages of sole traders who can claim work-related expenses against their income, a point conceded by the MEAA. However, it points out that independent contractors have no protection under employment law, which provides for holiday pay, sick pay and the ability to challenge dismissals.

The other big issue for actors is residuals - payments in addition to the original fees - payable only if a film or television show reaches a certain level of success or profitability.

According to Bruce, residuals are being phased out worldwide, replaced with up-front payments, and there is no going back. He says the cost of making fresh payments to the cast is the reason some New Zealand television series, like Mortimer's Patch, are no longer screened.

But actor Bruce Hopkins sees it differently. "If something's still making money 30 years later I think it's only right that those people who contributed and created a production - not just the actors but the creators, the writers - get a little bit of a reward. Residuals mean you can survive between jobs.

"Based on my experience with Lord of the Rings [he played the Rohan army leader Gamling] and I've seen it happen with Lion, Witch and King Kong, all the overseas projects that come here, we are the only English-speaking country in the world where actors can't negotiate residuals in your contract."

Total production financing (the amount spent on making films, television programmes and advertisements and non-broadcast media such as corporate videos) has increased from $151 million in 1994 to $450 million in 2003, hitting $572 million in 2001 when Lord of the Rings was at its peak.

Figures issued by the Screen Production and Development Association, which declined to be interviewed, show the turnover of companies in the industry has almost doubled, from $570 million to $926 million, again peaking in 2000 and 2001 at over $1 billion a year.

Theresa Brown, the NDU official responsible for actors, denies a merger could lead to a loss of identity for the film and television industry, and says it's a matter of providing union members with reasonable services and support.

"We don't believe we'll lose our identity and the extra resources we hope will affirm and improve our identity because, in my opinion, there's a lack of resources within the union and an inability to take real issues up on behalf of actors."

Brown says more than 400 have registered to take part in a ballot, expected to be conducted in August.

Film Commission chief executive Ruth Harley says she has no opinion on whether the actors should join the MEAA but questions what practical difference it will make. I think there is some optimism within the [acting] community in New Zealand that the benefits from Australia are transferable. I don't believe that we can import Australian practices into New Zealand because the labour laws just aren't the same.

"From the other point of view, people have said to me that the actors' industrial arrangements in New Zealand, relative to say the techos, the writers, the directors and the producers, are weak because they are less well-resourced. The people who advance this argument say that in the end this perhaps engenders a lack of confidence which may be reflected in performance."

The pay-peanuts-get-monkeys philosophy has support from the Council of Trade Unions, which approached the MEAA on the NDU's behalf. CTU secretary Carol Beaumont: "We don't think the film industry should be competing on 'oh we've got the lowest rates and conditions and you can come here and get cut-priced workers'. It should be competing on the fact we have magnificent scenery, skilled people, international recognition of our talent, and the facilities that now exist."