In an email cir­cu­lated yes­ter­day to mem­bers of Actor’s Equity from their exec­u­tive [see MEAA newslet­ter Q&A re: The Hob­bit ]the fol­low­ing claim is made:

“All NZ Equity sought was to meet with the pro­duc­tion and dis­cuss the con­di­tions under which per­form­ers would be engaged.…This request to meet was backed by the Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Actors (FIA) and per­form­ers’ unions around the world includ­ing SAG and Equity UK. The request was in the first instance made pri­vately, with­out the glare of the media on August 17. ”

Today Peter Jack­son released the August 17th let­ter which was addressed not to himself, but to the US direc­tors of 3 Foot 7 Lim­ited. “I was not being asked to meet, I was copied on a request by the union to enter into col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing with the US Direc­tors of Warner Broth­ers pro­duc­tion com­pany, 3 Foot 7 Limited.”

The August 17th let­ter [which can be down­loaded here: http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/letter1.pdf – Ed] reads:

Recently, The Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Actors (FIA) became aware that the pro­duc­tion of “The Hob­bit” intends to hire per­form­ers under non-union con­tracts. For this rea­son FIA, at its most recent meet­ing, unan­i­mously passed the fol­low­ing motion:

“Resolved, that the Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Actors urges each of its affil­i­ates to adopt instruc­tions to their mem­bers that no mem­ber of any FIA affil­i­ate will agree to act in the the­atri­cal fea­ture film “The Hob­bit” until such time as the pro­ducer has entered into a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment with the Media Enter­tain­ment & Arts Alliance for pro­duc­tion in New Zealand pro­vid­ing for sat­is­fac­tory terms and con­di­tions for all per­form­ers employed on the production”.

FIA there­fore encour­ages you to meet imme­di­ately with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Media Enter­tain­ment and Arts Alliance in order to reach an agree­ment cov­er­ing all per­form­ers engaged on this production.

In the first instance could you please make con­tact with Simon Whipp of the Media Enter­tain­ment & Arts Alliance.”

Jack­son goes on to say: “This is the first time I was made aware of the issue. It was the first time a meet­ing was ever requested and it was clear from the let­ter, they had already voted to black­list us, before even ask­ing for one con­ver­sa­tion with me. I am sick and tired of hear­ing Equity say ‘All we ever wanted was a meet­ing,’ because it’s disin­gen­u­ous — they fail to add that from the out­set, they had a gun to our head.”

“It just made me incred­i­bly angry, I won­dered how can a union behave like this? How could Simon Whipp ini­ti­ate an inter­na­tional strike action against our film with no prior vote from the Kiwi membership?”

When NZ Equity did finally vote on the issue they didn’t rat­ify the inter­na­tional ban but, came up with a watered down ver­sion of the word­ing. “They couldn’t even agree to endorse an indus­trial action that had been taken out in their name. Frankly, the fact that all of this was dri­ven by an Aus­tralian union offi­cial, only made me angrier. ”

NZ Equity has made numer­ous state­ments about want­ing to meet with Peter Jack­son to col­lec­tively bar­gain terms and con­di­tions for all cast on The Hob­bit. But Jack­son was advised that col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is ille­gal for inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors under NZ law and he was warned against tak­ing any meet­ings, whether it was on an offi­cial basis or hav­ing an infor­mal chat ‘over a cup of tea.’ All the way through this period WingNut Films requests of the union to lift the black­list were ignored, even after NZ Equity had admit­ted their request for col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing was in fact ille­gal. “They are attempt­ing to char­ac­terise their actions as an inno­cent request for a meet­ing, but the truth is they kept a loaded gun to our heads the entire time,” says Jackson.

Under their cur­rent rules the NZ Equity Exec­u­tive are not obliged to con­sult with the mem­ber­ship before they under­take inter­na­tional indus­trial action. But Jack­son says that any deci­sion on indus­trial action should be made by the mem­ber­ship via a valid resolution.

“It amazes me that The Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of NZ Actor’s Equity can walk rough shod over our indus­try and the union itself fails to adhere to the most basic prin­ci­ples of demo­c­ra­tic process. NZ Equity has given Simon Whipp absolute power and no one seems to care if he abuses it. He can threaten the liveli­hoods of thou­sands of Kiwis, jeop­ar­dise a huge finan­cial invest­ment to this coun­try and he’s not held account­able. We are talk­ing about an organ­i­sa­tion that accord­ing to the MEAA’s 2009 annual report, has the sum total 85 New Zealand mem­bers. It’s unbelievable! ”