Completion of first version of four practice tools in sight for chain table Film/AV
Photo: Wallpaper Flare
In recent months, the Film/AV Chain Table has worked along two tracks to concretize the Fair Practice Code and the Letter of Intent Audiovisual Sector. Proposals for four practice instruments are being developed and are becoming increasingly concrete. This summer and early September they will be presented to sounding board groups of financiers and experts and discussed with experience panels and supporters. Then they will be finalized and attention will be paid to implementation, assurance and management. Doreen Boonekamp, independent chair of the chain table, talks about the steps taken at the chain table and the state of affairs:
A general and legal framework of terms and guidance on safe and healthy working in the AV sector
Since the fall of 2022, a working group has been working in Phase 1 to create a framework of terms. The goal is to provide commonly used terms with a neutral definition so that work providers and workers are talking about the same thing when they use them in negotiations.
The negotiation time is thus used to further flesh out these terms, rather than first spending time determining whether they mean the same thing by certain terms. By speaking the same language, work providers and workers find it easier to reach unambiguous agreements. The list has grown to some 295 general and legal terms with definitions and has been submitted to De Koning Vergouwen Advocaten for review. The corrections have since been processed, completing the preparation of the first practical tool.
The working group started phase 2 in March to value concepts. It was not so easy to find an appropriate approach for this, because the Film/AV chain table focuses on the client-contractor relationship. It was therefore important to find a form in which contractors continue to be given and take sufficient space to be able to do business, to qualify as self-employed. This was achieved by connecting to the formulation of a security policy.
After all, as a client, a producer also has a derived responsibility for self-employed workers to make and enforce safety policies. After a series of intensive discussions in the working group, a draft guideline for safe and healthy working in the AV sector was drawn up. This includes basic principles for the physical and psychosocial safety of everyone involved in producing audiovisual productions. In the chain table meeting in June, we discussed the draft including principles for rest and working hours and other working conditions. With the feedback gathered, we are further developing the guideline.
An Assignment Compass and a guideline for minimum hourly rates
In addition to the conceptual framework and security policy guidelines, the Film/AV chain table, with the help of Bureau Berenschot, is working toward a guideline for minimum hourly rates in a number of steps.
First, the chain table participants identified the various functions involved in the pre-production, production and post-production phases. Next, these were classified into 14 professional areas and each provided with a brief description. To arrive at a workable classification tool, it was decided at the December 2022 chain table meeting to have a level matrix, using Berenschot’s job evaluation system, drawn up. The purpose of this level matrix (which has since been renamed Assignment Compass) is that principals and contractors within the Film/AV sector will soon be able to determine, on the basis of general level-dependent indicators for each assignment, to which discipline and level the assignment belongs.
In January and February, Berenschot conducted interviews within each subject area with at least two contractors with different tasks. Based on these reference assignments, specific norm texts were drafted at the corresponding level in the Assignment Compass. The progress of the development of the Assignment Compass was discussed during chain table meetings and, in addition, another request was made in May. With the responses received, the Assignment Compass was further elaborated and its language was closer to that of the AV sector.
The aim is to provisionally adopt the Assignment Compass in the last chain table meeting before the summer vacation, so that after final editing by Berenschot, we can start discussing it with the sounding board groups and experience panels. For a good understanding and application of the Assignment Compass in practice, Berenschot is also planning another workshop.
“Important is to keep the momentum going.”
Using the Assignment Compass as a classification tool, Berenschot is conducting a benchmark study with the Broadcasting Personnel Collective Agreement and the Theatre and Dance Collective Agreement. The results are first translated into a market-based hourly rate for salaried employees. Next, Berenschot is investigating the construction of a mark-up factor to arrive at a recommendation on minimum hourly rates in line with the market for a self-employed worker. During the last chain table meeting before the summer vacations, Berenschot will present the state of affairs. After that, Berenschot will complete the research and advice.
Support for developed practice tools
The intensive preparation by working groups and the in-depth responses to solicitations help enormously to be able to come up with proposals for practice tools this summer. These will then be discussed with sounding board groups of experts and financiers, as well as with experience panels and constituencies. The chain table participants are aware that it is also in connection with the decision-making about the distribution of the extra resources for Fair Pay for the coming culture note period.