Posts by SteveH
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But I think they did have good cause to believe that the boycott would be lifted, to the point of consulting on a press release. I'm not sure if the correspondence has been published, but enough people have "sighted" emails that, in the Herald's words, "undermine" Warners' original account
But still, having good cause to believe that the boycott would be lifted is not likely to be enough for Warners - they need it to be actually lifted. I don't think they ever denied knowing that it would be lifted before the 20th, only the claims that it was actually lifted before the 20th and that they had requested the delay. It's a matter of fact that the notice rescinding the ban went up on the 20th, and Radio New Zealand, having seen the emails, stated that "it remains unclear why the statement was not released, and at exactly what point it faltered." So I don't see how either of Warners' points have shown to be false.
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New Line Cinema said it:
Recent reports that the boycott of The Hobbit was lifted by unions a number of days ago and that Warner Bros asked to delay this announcement are false.
It was not until last night that we received confirmation of the retractions from SAG, NZ Equity and AFTRA through press reports. We are still awaiting retractions from the other guilds.
But they agreed the boycott was off "last night" (i.e. either 20th or the 21st - it's ambiguous due to timezones) so they didn't actually wait for the other retractions. Their point was they did not receive official confirmation that the boycott was lifted until the 20th/21st - not the 17th as NZAE have claimed.
Do you agree that it would not have been possible to get a union actor to sign on the 18? If so then Warners weren't lying about the timing, were they? The only way I can see Warners being underhanded about this is if they asked for the lifting of the boycott to be delayed. But even then the unions still could have issued the notice lifting the ban whenever they wanted, yet they waited until the 20th.
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The fact that it takes several days for everyone to say "ok ban off guys" is simply evidence that it takes time for the message to get there and people in the right positions to sign off. For Warners to say "NZ has called off the ban but Canada/UK haven't" or whatever, is mischevious.
Warners never actually said that.
The people who were refusing to work were the actors - the ban is not off until the actors know that it is off. All the evidence points to the actors being informed on the 20th, so the ban wasn't lifted until the 20th. If Warners wanted to sign someone on the 18th from AE (USA) they wouldn't have been able to as neither the actor nor AE (USA) had been informed that the ban had been lifted at that point.
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I think they were, and that the intention was to exploit the union's weak position and not allow them to claim a win. The correspondence released by NZAE seems to suggest that.
Is that the correspondence about the press release? The RNZ story said that the reason that discussion broke down was unclear from what they had seen - have you seen something more definitive?
I still maintain that Warners were within their rights to not consider the boycott lifted until it was actually lifted by all the boycotting parties. And it seems that at least some of those parties didn't know it was going to be lifted until the 20th.
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Warners got caught lying about when they were told that the boycott was lifted.
I don't think they did. Warners were informed that the boycott would be lifted as early as Sunday, but saying "we're going to lift the boycott" is not the same as actually lifting it. I don't think it's unreasonable for Warner's to wait until all the parties to the ban have lifted it. Those parties were:
ACTRA (Canada) - notice posted Oct 21
Equity (UK) - notice undated
Canadian Actor's Equity Association - notice undated
MEAA - no notice available online
SAG - Oct 20
Actors' Equity Association (USA) - Oct 20
AFTRA (USA) - Oct 20 5pmThe wording of some of those notices are telling, e.g. from Actor's Equity (USA):
On October 20, 2010, NZ Actors' Equity recommended that the international performer unions of FIA withdraw their respective member advisories prohibiting members from accepting employment on the theatrical motion picture "The Hobbit."
They are saying that they were advised by NZAE to lift their ban on the 20th. It's hard to reconcile that with NZAE's claims that the ban was lifted on the 17th. Why should Warners have considered the ban lifted on the 17th if some of the parties to the ban weren't aware that is was being lifted at that time?
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1. How many members did/does NZAE have?
I think the ~600 number is the right one.
2. Whose decision was it to send the August 17 letter?
The FIA issued the letter, it's signed by the FIA's president and its general secretary. So ultimately it was their decision.
8. Who is telling the truth between Spada and NZAE about who wouldn't talk to who over the past 2 years?
Spada refused to meet to discuss a collective agreement. Their belief was that such an agreement would be illegal. I'd also note that even if such an agreement was legal NZAE were not a registered union at the time.
NZAE refused to meet to revise the pink book.So they are both telling the truth in a way, though NZAE's been less upfront about exactly what the situation was.
9. Was Simon Whipp merely acting on instructions from NZAE, or was he driving it?
My guess is that the decision to target The Hobbit was Whipp's. NZAE is not mentioned at all in the early correspondence. Whether NZAE was consulted or not before Whipp took it to the FIA is unclear. I suspect if they were it all sounded like a good idea anyway as it appears that both NZAE and MEAA were in denial about the legal situation: they probably both thought the claim that a collective agreement was illegal was just stonewalling by Spada. The MEAA factsheet claims they had legal advice "that there are a variety of lawful means which could be used to establish the minimum wages, working conditions and residuals for performers on the production". Was that advice accurate, incorrect or misinterpreted?
10. When Helen Kelly intervened, why did she not force Simon Whipp to front the media instead of owning the mess herself?
I'm sure she thought she could sort it out. When she stepped in it was already apparent that MEAA/NZAE had badly mishandled the whole thing - having a competent third party front up would have seemed like a good idea. And I think it was the right move - I think Helen has done a better job than Robyn and Jennifer in the media.
12. Why did NZAE impose a boycott BEFORE canvassing their membership on changes that they want to see in their contracts and/or the Pink Book?
I think it escalated from "let's try to leverage The Hobbit" to "we're boycotting The Hobbit" very rapidly. It might have all happened at the FIA meeting that produced the resolution mentioned in the August 17 letter. What I'd like to know is whether NZAE had anyone at that FIA meeting or whether MEAA were representing NZ actors.
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"Maybe a moot point, but if residuals don't kick in until 2 years after cinema release*, there probably won't be that much money to pick up, for anyone."
On the contrary, that's usually when "Special Collector's Edition" type releases start happening. Different rules for a blockbuster with a fanbase than for most films.
Not only that, but don't forget there are two films. If it works like the LoTR did, it'll go something like this:
* The Hobbit released Dec 2012
* Standard edition DVD/Bluray released mid 2013
* Extended edition DVD/Bluray released late 2013
* Hobbit Sequel released Dec 2013
* Sequel Standard edition DVD/Bluray and sets released mid 2014
* Sequel Extended edition DVD/Bluray and sets released late 2014
Probably some sort of mega-boxset with LoTR as well.So residuals for the first movie would kick in right when the extended edition sets are being released. I think there will be reasonable residuals even 2 years after release, at least for first movie.
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At the second Wellington Actors meeting Penelope Borland and Dave Gibson made it very clear that SPADA was rejecting Equity’s request to negotiate a collective agreement while Equity was saying they wanted to move on from the Pink Book concept, so the stalemate was two-sided.
But you said above that "Equity had a legal opinion (Simpson Grierson) that organisations of 50 or more could negotiate non-binding recommendations on behalf of a group of independent contractors" (emphasis mine). So if Equity's own lawyer's opinion was that a collective agreement was out of the question why were they trying to get Spada to negotiate one? Spada were not being unreasonable in refusing to negotiate an illegal collective agreement.
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We'd need a better troll to make it that far.
Hmm, Russell, how about hooking Chris Trotter up with an account?
Wait, what am I saying?
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So in the end, it's a question of timing, isn't it? We don't really know what came first, chicken or egg. Did those notices come out after some approaches were rebuffed? Or not? We don't know.
Even if the notices came out after some approaches were rebuffed I don't see it as a reasonable move on the union's part because the target of the notices (The Hobbit producers) were not the people the union should have been negotiating with (Spada).
One final point. The union has finally been negotiating with Spada so they've obviously recognised that Spada was the right party to approach. So why wasn't the notice against the Hobbit rescinded at that point? Why has The Hobbit production continued to have been blocked even after the union entered the negotiations they wanted with an unrelated party? The notice has been up for far longer than it should have been.
Btw Jacqui, while I've been responding to your posts I haven't intended to target you specifically. I feel that some people (e.g. Millsy) have tried to turn the debate into arguments based on generalisations (e.g. if you're pro-union you must support NZAE in this). I don't' agree with that: I think the debate should be about the specifics of this situation. Your posts just conveniently bought the thread back to the specifics.