Variety: After a tidal wave of more than 70 TV and film production shutdowns last week, Hollywood’s major players spent much of Monday sorting out the tricky question of how long crew members will be paid during the unexpected dark period.
Industry sources said the issue of how to handle obligations to crew members was the subject of a great deal of email and text traffic on Monday among studio executives, producers and Hollywood union officials.
3 comments:
With the shut down of almost all amenities because of the impact of Covid- 19, this is something that I somehow was anticipating this too. Given that all productions have been basically shut down and there is no need for in- person contact, everyone has been asked to not come to the theaters.
With that logic it would make the most sense that people are not necessarily, from a financial point of view, paid for their job because the work is not necessarily needed. But I also know that that is not the way that these things work and that the employees are generally on a contract, ensuring their payment stays constant in cases such as these.
I really just hope that the matter stays the same and that no one is at a disadvantage, financially because of this entire situation, and that no one is hurt and has to struggle to get their jobs back.
It is breaking my technical theatre heart seeing how many people in this industry are being impacted by this rampant virus. My heart is really going out to all the lower level workers who are typically the fresh out of college young adults who really need money for rent and food. Some of the older folks who qualify for the full time salary two week coverage, in many cases, have some money saved, or own a house and are not actively owing rent. I think this was a fair call, however, based on rank and seniority, but it does make my young heart hurt for all those folks out there who own rent that they can no longer afford because they have no income. I also know that some people who have these part time jobs may also have second jobs as waiters or other service industry jobs that now are also closed thus negating any second job income that they would be relying on. I hate capitalism.
The shutdowns these past few weeks have been so scary for workers living paycheck-to-paycheck, especially in the performance industry. With all nonessential work ordered to close, and large gatherings of people banned, the performing arts, an industry of nonessential large gatherings of people, is really hit hard. I’m glad that companies are committing to two weeks of standard pay, although I think the point about how 40 hours is markedly below the ‘standard’ work week for production crews is a good one. Maybe a solution could be to maintain the hours from the last full week of work before the shutdown, to make sure people are able to maintain their actual salary? This whole situation is so frustrating. Obviously social distancing and the shutdowns are the correct move and meant to save lives. I just hope people don’t start starving to death because they lost their job in the meantime.
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