Going it alone in the employment world can be very tough. It can also be very rewarding. People in film and television have learnt this over the years.
Lyndon Sayer-Jones, who writes a column for Encore, the Australian film industry’s trade magazine has just published a book on the law on film and television: Law Brief. The Australian Film and Television Industry in the Nineties.
The industry is laced with traps and pitfalls, not only legal ones, but practical ones.
In a normal week, the book would have limited interest. This week, it has wider appeal. The Opposition spokesman on industrial relations, John Howard, has just released IR II the sequel to IR which did not do so well at the ballot-box office in 1990.
The general plot line of IR II is that every employee will like would like us all to be employed that way as actors, directors, producers in the film and television industry: on contract.
This book is a singular lesson for those wanting individual contracts. It warns that you have to structure your affairs and to negotiate contracts so as to minimise the likelihood of going to court to fight for your rights. The waste of a time and money and the aggravation involved are alarming.
The entertainment industry is a great example of the productivity of the individual contract system. Those that are talented (or more correctly, seen by the public to be talented) earn the most money. Those that do not have talent or do not work don’t get paid. The talented do not have to subsidise the less so. None the less, the talented can get ripped off, too.
One could draw and analogy between John Howard’s deregulated labour market and other markets. As a general principle, markets for commodities like wheat, pork bellies, coffee and the like are determined solely by price. Wheat is wheat is wheat, only the price matters. There are, of course, different kinds of wheat, but they are not profoundly different in the eye of the consumer, until brand differentiation is created. Then you have products rather than commodities. Perrier is not mere mineral water. Reboks are not mere shoes.
The present award-employed labour market is neither a product or commodity market, but a regulated market, in which there is no impetus for an employee to dress up as a product rather than a commodity: you are going to get the award rate anyway.
Under the Howard scheme, employees will try to create the equivalent of brand differentiation for themselves. Each will strive to be the Rebok rather than the generic running shoe, because the Rebok attracts the highest price or wage.
This certainly happens in the film and television industry. Actors, directors, musicians etc create themselves as a product for sale in order to attract the best return.
Whether this sort of conduct is socially beneficial in a metal-workers’ shop is a philosophic question of some import. Should Joe Blow cut himself a niche market in aluminium-alloy welding? Of should all the welders stay mates in mediocrity?
Drawing an analogy between the film and television industry and Howard’s labour market may be a long bow, but even a casual read of Sayer-Jones’s book shows that individuals seeking contracts with employers need to be very careful.
The pitfalls are many, but the rewards great. It is a question of skilful product differentiation. Employees will have to say I can do the job better, and negotiate better a return on that basis. It may result in the sort of bitchiness we see in the film industry, if so IR II promises to be very entertaining.
Diary: October 28-30. Conference entitled Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia. Theatrette Parliament House and Humanities Research Centre, ANU. Organised by the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies. For more information contact David Headon 2688901 or 2688904.
The objective of the conference is to broaden the current debate by addressing historical, cultural, social and constitutional aspects of an Australian Republic.