Bohemian Rhapsody VFX workers owed thousands as Halo VFX goes into administration

from the news section at BECTUhttps://www.bectu.org.uk/news/293326 February 2019 

VFX workers have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after working tirelessly on recent films including multiple Oscar winning film Bohemian Rhapsody.

Despite recent news from the BFI that the VFX industry contributed £1BN to the UK economy, freelance visual effects artists have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after a VFX firm went bust.BECTU union, which represents VFX freelancers, is currently handing cases totalling more than £53,000, owing to four of its members following the collapse of Halo VFX Limited, which provided visual effects work on high-budget productions including Curfew, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Discovery of Witches.In yet another example of the problems facing the VFX industry in paying its staff, BECTU is pursuing the unpaid fees and demanding answers from company directors about how they will compensate members for the failure to pay them. The union is also calling for a new industry code of practice to better protect freelance workers when companies go into administration.BECTU Assistant National Secretary, Paul Evans, has been working with London production freelance members for seven years.He said: “I’ve never had a situation where individual BECTU members have been hit this badly and it is not something we can’t just shrug our shoulders and move on from.“This is a hugely profitable industry and the productions that our members worked on were successful. It’s not acceptable for VFX artists who have contributed to the success of multi-million pound features to be the ones to carry risk and to go unpaid for their hard work and talent.”BECTU is seeking a meeting with company directors and is writing to union members to advise them against accepting work without guarantees of weekly pay.Evans added: “Our industry is unsustainable if directors can, effectively, establish an arm of one company, trade unsuccessfully and then leave workers to carry the can. If the industry can’t come up with a way of protecting workers from this kind of catastrophe, we will have to invest in some publicity to warn people against working for any VFX or Post Production company as a limited company, or in any status that doesn’t ensure that they have full employment rights.”“The incentives are all wrong in VFX. A lot of the risks end up on the shoulders of freelance workers who have to cushion the industry by accepting long periods of unpaid overtime work and working-hours that are very sub-optimal in terms of creativity and productivity. It’s an industry that drives talented people out."https://www.bectu.org.uk/news/2933

MPC Cuts Comp Jobs in Canada

It happened in London, and it's about to happen again in Canada.

We've heard reports that 90% of the compositing department for Montreal will be let go/have their contracts run out shrinking the Montreal office down to around 20 core compositing crew (including supervisors).This sadly includes some new recruits form MPC's comp academy, many whom having relocated internationally for the opportunity to work with MPC, were being told that as soon as the course concludes they will also be let go. You can imagine moving half-way across the world and just starting out, to learn a short time later that you're going to have to move again.This seems to be a departure from MPC usual hiring of the comp academy graduates and letting go mid-level compers. Even seniors appear to be having their visa renewals reduced. Does this spell the end for their Montreal office?Montreal doesn't appear to be the only Canadian MPC suffering from cut backs, as we've also hear rumours of cuts in the Vancouver office. We can only wonder what this mean for compositing jobs in general at MPC.I know there were some people that speculated that it was the threat of unionization that may have contributed to cutbacks in London's compositing department, but that wasn't really happening in the Canadian offices, could it be that really this was their plan all along? Many people would have said that writing was certainly on the wall, well before BECTU joined the fight for better working environments. Our hearts and solidarity go out to our fellow colleagues in Canada who are facing the loss of their jobs or are affected.Has this affected you? Let us know!VFX workers have to stick together, and it's sad when companies bottom lines affect real human lives with such stark consequences for workers of having to be let go and move cities. It's something many VFX workers know all too well.Edit: Small edit made about production staff. Apparently they will not be considerably reduced, but instead will move to other departments for the time being.

MPC to offer absolute minimum redundancy payments?

Statutory redundancy. Only statutory redundancy.

Last week, we posted our astonishment at MPC's general attitude as a company to talent and quality. Readers will remember that they're largely closing down the Compositing Department that won them the Oscar for Jungle Book a few short months ago - and they're replacing them with the sort of low wage "trainees" that they can get (thanks to Apprenticeship subsidies) to mind the shop until they need to crew up again for a big job.

It couldn't stink any more than it does, right?

Wrong.

If what we are hearing is correct, the award winning staff that are being made redundant are being told that they will only receive "statutory redundancy." That is the absolute minimum redundancy payment that can be paid without being illegal.

Normally, when someone is in a high-value occupation, they would expect the employer to want to retain their skills by offering them a reasonable package - not just a reasonable rate for the hours that they work (not including unpaid overtime).

They would expect at the very least...

• A reasonable amount of sick pay - allowing for some paid time off if you get the lurgy
• A competitive pensions package that shows that the employer has your long-term interests at heart
• A humane approach to your working hours - knowing what all good employers know - that you get more productivity from sensible hours than you get from seven long-day weeks.
• A notice-and-redundancy package to reassure them that they won't be let go lightly

When employers say that they aim to value and retain staff, one would tend to expect something like "a month for every year" deal - this is a tax-free (up to £30k) payment of one month's salary, plus a notice period of three months. This is the kind of deal you would expect from a company in this sector (if the company recognises unions, anyway).

This means that they will pay you one month's salary for every full year you have worked for them as "compensation for loss of employment" along with a notice period that they may or may not need you to work (but you will get paid for them if you don't work it).

Some of the more cheapskate employers go for "three weeks for every year" or something like that, but as far as the visual effects industry goes, they never act this way. For these employers, what's on the table is rarely more than the absolute bare legal minimum.

The London VFX facilities offer only one week for every year that you have worked - capped at £489 - a lot less than a quarter of what some employees in other comparable industries get for redundancy.

The 'statutory cap (for workers aged under 41) at only £489 per week is particularly insulting. So someone earning, say £40,000, who has worked for five years at a company offering the standard "month for every year" and "three months notice" deal would earn around £16,700 tax-free redundancy and would have a three month notice period, or a payment of £10,000 if they didn't work it.

The same employee, now being laid off from MPC - having just won them an Oscar - would get a tax-free payment of only £2,445 and five weeks pay of £3846 - if the employer decides not to make them work their notice period (we're not clear yet what the deal is on this).

The bottom line is, vfx facilities like MPC want to reap all the rewards from their employees, but are not willing to go the extra mile to show how much they value the dedication and talent of their workers. Not so long ago in November, 2014, there was an article in Variety where the CEO of MPC Mark Benson said that for The Moving Picture Company, "Valuing Artists is the Best Effect".

Everybody knew it wasn't true back then and it seems very much like isn't true today either.