WORKING
RIGHTS DISCUSSION IN FRANCE
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WHAT IS THE QUESTION
OPEN LETTER TO FILM PRODUCTION EMPLOYEES
Shots were affected by several technicians striking on May 3rd and 4th, having also generated situations of obstructing the set and material access. APC, respectful of the strike right, condemns vividly the obstruction practice, the more so as these were knowingly committed with a total contempt of the calendar of negotiations, unanimously adopted a few days earlier by the two sides of the industry brought together in Joint Committee. APC is hostile to social dialogue refusal. This is why we wished to keep our commitment and to give to the employee’s organizations on May 10, as it was committed there, a last proposal of conventional text integrating a firm contract on guaranteed remunerations minimum which intended to answer the concerns expressed by the employees. To once and for all clarify the producer’s position and to avoid a skewed interpretation of our purposes, we wish to point out the objectives of our proposal here. 1) This new collective convention proposal recognizes and confirms the specificity of film salary system We absolutely wish to keep in our films a high degree of specialization
and an excellent quality of work, both by workmen and technicians,
working on French films. While engaging on a collective proposal
convention likely to be extended to the whole of the profession,
the producers of the APC clearly intend to deviate from the
common right regarding wages (SMIC) extending it to the whole
of the employees, including to those which, until this time,
have never profited the benefit of the conventional mode. 2) This new collective agreement proposal guarantees the respect of the legislation on the duration of the work It’s been two years since the negotiations began. The producers now brought together within the APC have not ceased pointing out their main goal: to define a rule, made compulsory in all the profession without exception, which makes it possible to organize work, and in particular the calculation of the hours, in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Our company’s survival depends on it and that’s why the law sanctions severely the companies that not declare the totality of the hours actually worked by technicians and workmen, including the hours of preparation and arrangement. We want to declare every working hour, up to 48 hours per week during the shooting phase. In order to with "small arrangements" and "hour gifts". We want to create a homogeneous treatment for the whole of the personnel of the cinematographic production and give back to France its attractive feature to welcome foreign shootings, thanks to an organization of work thus clarified. 3) This new collective agreement proposal, contrary to the allegations made by certain trade unions of technicians, does not reduce, yet increases, the purchasing power of the employees By obliging the payment of total overtime exceeding the 39 hours limit in preparation and the 48 hours limit in shooting, the producers of the APC engage to respect an equal grid, even sometimes higher than the current scales of reference, for all “comercial” films. Further more, our proposals consider and revalue the weekly meals and the time distance and transport minimum allowances, for all employees. The grid of wages thus founds a true platform for guaranteed remuneration to all employees. 4) This new collective agreement proposal preserves the number of films and the volume of employees in French cinema This proposal indeed integrates a basic grid which aims protect the films with a more fragile economy, which make the fame of our cinematography in the festivals around the world, but whose existence even would be called into question by the application of such levels. In order to assure a perfect transparency on the possibility of negotiating these tariffs respecting a minimum, we propose the implementation of the "basic grid" fixed under the control of the CNC and holding account on the following criteria: - film budget A study undertaken jointly with the CNC will make it possible to appreciate the relevance of these criteria, to specify them better, and to fix the levels suitable in comparison with the practices, noted by the Commission d'Agrément, on films of French initiative. A cultural and social act is what is at stake and therefore it’s essential to guarantee both the number of produced films and the total volume of employment in the sector. This has been already accepted by the majority of the employees’ organizations in the collective agreement of TV production. For the first time for 50 years, the payments we propose are true minimum bases, imposed to all employers without exception, in benefit of all the employees: an absolute platform, which brings many guarantees - way beyond the SMIC or the Fair Labor Standards Act. This is a major social progress for all the film production employees. The producers of the APC are everybody’s disposal to explain this proposal which will be officially presented during the equal Joint Committee, next May 30.
In an open letter to film production employees, you present your new collective agreement proposal as “a major social progress”. Our interpretation of it is quite different. Our editing trade is particularly abused and even endangered. We have discovered in astonishment the appearance of a new function: film editor (image and sound). It’s not even a question for us to accept such under qualification. Let us recall you that an Editing team consists of a Main Editor, an Assisting Editor, and a Second Assisting Editor (the ex-trainee). Why create a new function, if is not to organize the dismantling of the traditional team? We can’t continue to accept the content “(image and sound)”: the concept of an “image” Editor does not correspond to any present practice for no one edits silent films. On the contrary, sound is a paramount element for the decision-makings and the artistic choices which we must make to build a film. The technical and artistic responsibility of the Main Editor
is mainly focused on the finishing process of the film, since
copy number 0, i.e. in particular on the whole of the operations
necessary to the development of the final sound track: sound
effects, post-synchronism, assembly its, music, mixing. There
is no legitimacy to limit its role to the only "image". Thus, for one week of 39h: - First Editing Assistant: 630 euros instead of 885,21 according to the July 1, 2006 scale. - Editor: 665 euros. This invented function makes it possible to engage an Editor for less money than an Assistant Editor according to the current rate! - Main Editor: 1050 euros instead of 1299,10 according to the July 1, 2006 scale. That is to say: a decrease of approximately 20 % for Main Editors and nearly 30 % for the assistants. You call that a platform, it acts rather as a basement. Other features of the proposal worry us as much: - The classification of documentary films in a separate appendix is completely artificial. The long documentary features have the potential to be commercially exhibited and therefore shouldn’t be classified separately. Its making requires the same technicians and the same competences than fiction films. They should not become an under category, especially concerning the Editors point of view that have such an important role on the plot’s craft. - The limitation of “strike right”, subjected by decision of a Social Equalitarian Committee, is a threat without precedent of an individual right guaranteed by the Constitution. - The availability of the employee according to its producer at the end of his contract is an abusive device. - Only on May 1 would be a public paid holiday , whereas the collective agreement of audio-visual defines 6 other of them: January 1, July 14, August 15, November 1, November 11 and December 25, provided that these days fall between two days of work in a contract of employment during at least two weeks. We think that the whole proposal is to be re-examined and that it embodies a clear regression. We take seriously your declaration of availability to receive each and every one and ask to be heard by the producers of the APC before the meeting of the Social Equalitarian Committee of May 30.
Diana Soeiro (English translation from AFC’s May Newsletter - Association
Française des directeurs de la photographie
Cinématographique/ French Association of Directors of
Photography)
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May
2007 - On a collective film convention discussion, French technicians
have gathered to be able to make a stronger statement towards
the opposite side, the producers. The Set Decoration Association
(Association des décorateurs de cinéma
- ADC), the Assistant Director’s Association (l’Association
française des assistants réalisateurs - AFAR),
the French Association of Directors of Photography (Association
française des directeurs de la photographie cinématographique
- AFC), the Fiction Cadreurs’ French Association (Association
française des cadreurs de fiction - AFCF ), the Director’s
French Association (l’Association française des
régisseurs - AFR), the Artistic Distribution Responsibles
Association (Association des responsables de la distribution
artistique – Arda), the Editing Associates (Les Monteurs
associés - LMR) and the Writing Associates (Les Scriptes
associés - LSA) have gathered to better defend their
rights. “We know that improvements are essential for
our work organization and we want, “we” the “film
working class”, our voice to be heard during the negotiations
between trade unions of employees and producers.”
