The Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) have reached a tentative agreement on a new national commercials contract. The DGA’s negotiating committee and national board have unanimously approved the four-year contract, which is being sent to Guild membership for a ratification vote. Those votes will be tallied and the outcome should be known before the end of the month. If the pact is indeed ratified, it would take effect on Nov. 1, and run through Oct. 31, 2009.
DGA president Michael Apted noted that the agreement contains substantial increases in health plan contributions and in minimum rates for directors and assistant directors. (Apted, well known as a feature and documentary filmmaker, directs spots via Santa Monica-based Independent Media..)
According to DGA Eastern executive director Russ Hollander, the deal “will benefit both sides of the bargaining table–it means more work for the companies and more jobs for our members.” He stated that the Guild’s negotiating committee “was intent on finding creative solutions that benefit our members, while simultaneously enabling production companies to compete in the global marketplace.”
On that latter front, for example, the new pact offers hiring flexibility under certain circumstances. For jobs entailing three or fewer shoot days entirely outside North America–and that have been awarded with 10 business days or less notice–an American production house would not be required to transport a first assistant director to the foreign country where lensing is taking place. The production house would have to give first preference to DGA first assistant directors who live in the foreign country, however.
AICP president/CEO Matt Miller described this as an important gain for AICP houses, adding that it’s also been agreed that production companies don’t have to apply for work visas for–or transport–assistant directors to six countries for spot shoots: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, South Africa and the U.K. Under the current labor laws in these countries, said Miller, such work visas aren’t available and the DGA has recognized that fact.
Miller related that saving assistant director first class travel and per diem on a U.K. shoot, for example, helps to make an American shop more competitive in bidding for the work against a U.K. production company.
LOW BUDGET PROVISIONS
The new DGA commercials contract, if ratified, will also afford some flexibility for AICP member houses looking to offer production services in the U.S. to foreign production companies. The Guild agreed to give “good faith consideration” to AICP production house requests to provide production services on U.S. shoots for non-signatory foreign production companies. This would apply only to commercials that are being shown solely in foreign markets outside the U.S. and Canada.
In the past, said Miller, the rule was that as long as a signatory U.S. production company was hiring, everyone hired needed to be union. But in the case of facilitating a production for a foreign house, the AICP contended that it was the foreign company that, for instance, hires the director who might be nonunion. The DGA has now recognized this in the new agreement, saying that it will consider an AICP company request for a Guild waiver on such projects. This in turn could open up more employment opportunities for Guild assistant directors; for example, a non-DGA director could be supported by a DGA crew.
Furthermore, the new DGA/AICP agreement has a low budget provision that applies to any commercial in which total costs do not exceed $75,000 for a single shoot day, $150,000 for two days, or $225,000 for three days or longer. (This per shoot day limit of $75,000 cannot be exceeded; for example, a two-day shoot in which the first day is more than $75,000 but the second is less, making for a $150,000 total, would not qualify for any low budget DGA benefit.)
For qualifying projects under the low-budget provision, salaries are negotiable and the employer’s pension and welfare benefits are paid on scale.
ASSISTANT DIRS.; DIVERSITY
The DGA has also agreed to make its longstanding assistant directors training program in New York more responsive to the commercialmaking community. There will be a newly placed emphasis, said Hollander, on training spot assistant directors.
Additionally, the new contract calls for the DGA and AICP to form a joint diversity committee to explore ways by which to open up more employment opportunities for women and ethnic minorities.
Besides what’s in the contract, what’s not included is also of some significance. In prior pacts– including the current one which is set to expire on Oct. 31–there has been language prohibiting production companies from employing ad agency personnel to direct. That provision hasn’t been strictly enforced but there were some instances in which the DGA cited violations. The new agreement doesn’t contain any such prohibition.
WAGES, PENSION & HEALTH
Hollander noted that the new agreement provides wage increases for Guild members. For example, the minimum rate for a first assistant director would increase from $621 to $750–followed by three percent annual increases in year two, three and four of the contract. Furthermore, there’s a general increase in employer pension and welfare contributions, which are based on presumed earnings in worker (director, assistant director, unit production manager) categories. With presumed earnings rising in each category of the new contract, pension and welfare payments by employers will see substantive increases, said Hollander.
Miller agreed that these increases are significant but added that pension and health contributions have remained fairly static over the past seven years. An increase, he said, was necessary given the state of healthcare, and this translates into just one major increase over an 11-year span if the new four-year contract is ratified.
“In many ways,” stated Miller, “our negotiations with the Guild reflect the close working relationship that commercial producers share with our directorial partners every day. Thanks to that relationship, and the Guild’s understanding of the unique nature of commercial production, we were able to make headway on issues that will allow our member companies to better compete in the global marketplace while continuing to afford members of the Guild important protections in the workplace.”
