Australian crew to take 15 per cent pay cut to secure 20,000 Leagues
Disney is working on a deal with the Media Entertainment Arts Alliance that will see the local production crew behind 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea adopt US contracts.
While the MEAA has agreed to the move, negotiations continue on what stipulations the contracts will include for local crew.
Previous contracts of a similar nature have included reductions in penalties for night shooting and other stipulations that mean an overall reduction of daily pay of up to 15 per cent.
However Mal Tulloch, director of the entertainment and crew section of the MEAA, says local crew will not be worse off under the agreement. “Australian and US conditions level out when you consider all the entitlements,” he said.
“Australian agreements that look the same as the US and Canada…will allow Australian technicians to remain globally competitive.”
Local crew keen to secure work say they would be willing to agree to the discussed terms.
“We’d rather 85 per cent of something than 100 per cent of nothing,” said Sydney-based key grip, Toby Copping who has worked on projects including The Knowing and Where the Wild Things Are.
Assistant director Joshua Watkins, who has worked on projects including The Hobbit and The Killer Elite, said: “The situation is desperate and we have to be prepared to negotiate in order to secure work.”
Tulloch said of the ongoing negotiations: “At the moment we are trying to knock the agreement into some sort of shape so that it will actually go through Fair Work Australia.”
There is concern that some of Disney’s proposed clauses would be in breach of Australian Industrial Relations laws.
This is not the first case of US productions requesting Australian crews sign US contracts. A recent example was the Steven Spielberg-produced television series Terra Nova.
In 2012, Australia hosted just one large-budget international film, The Wolverine, and there have been calls by the MEAA and technicians to lift the location offset of 16.5 per cent to 30 per cent to entice more international productions to Australia.
The recent unveiling of Creative Australia, the new national cultural policy from the Australian government, aims to bring more international productions to this country. The federal government has offered $20 million in funding to attract international films.
Former Arts minister Simon Crean has said the funding boost would be a precursor to the location offset being permanently increased if the Australian dollar remains high. Tulloch said: “The government has left the door open to lift the offset and we are hopeful that they will.”
Yesterday, The Australian reported that the federal government would be paying Disney $21.6m to attract 20,000 Leagues to Australia – the biggest one-off payment ever made to bring a production to Australia.
Lachlan French
Working with U.S. film companies is all about collaboration.
Bend over.
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This is really quite disgusting. We are PAYING Disney – one of the giants of the global entertainment industry – $21m to make a movie here, and now asking the crew to be paid less than Australian award wages?
What the hell is this about? Imagine if the Government was to PAY Apple to open Apple Stores in a bunch of cities and then the Apple store employees were to be paid at US rates. That’s pretty much the size of it. And it stinks.
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I hope the MEAA is as flexible with the many lower budget Australian productions unable to cast Americans due to rate penalties…
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MEAA are hypocrites. they will do what it takes to get big budget films, but seem intent to stop low budget films from getting over the line.
for just an industry association, i think they have way too much say.
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So what return does Labour expect to get on giving $21.6m to Disney?
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They should only have agreed to a 7.5% cut and then filmed 10 000 Leagues.
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I don’t think the Federal government has just given $21.6 million to Disney. On top of this is the 16.5% rebate Disney will also claim. They’ll shoot, employ some Australians for the duration and then leave. Australia will get no ongoing income from the production. It is far worse than continuing to subsidise the local car industry. At least with cars, infrastructure is built and maintained and the cars both exported and sold here. Would the Feds finance a one-off car? When are politicians going to realise that Disney is running a manufacturing industry, no different to General Motors? It is dumb economics and poor policy.
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Idea – Get rid of this agreement with Disney, put the 20+Million of Fed Gov money into the Australian film industry and get more Australian works produced. Imagine how many Australian movies can be made with that money!
We will also then see an increase both to the available work for our casts and crews, as well as further promotion of Australia as a great place to film.
Best of all, it gives our creators a chance to produce our ORIGINAL stories, instead of a story that has been told again, and again, and again as Hollywood is want to do.
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