Thursday VFX Lunchmeet back at the Jurassic Church today!

With London weather, you've gotta be prepared to grab some sunshine at a moments notice! Spring seems to be finally here and the weather is gorgeous, so we're moving the Thursday Lunchmeet back to the courtyard at St. Anne's Church on Wardour Street (a.k.a. The Jurassic Church)!

1:00-2:00 Thursday at The Jurassic Church

(St. Anne's, Wardour Street, nr. Shaftesbury Ave.)

 Grab a sandwich or some sushi, sit on the grass, soak up a little sunshine and chat about what's happening in the world of London VFX! Come along and tell us what you think about your experiences with the HourlyRateCalculator! It's going to be a beautiful day, and I'm promised the T-Rex will behave itself and stay in the enclosure the entire time. 

1:00-2:00pm Thursday at

The Jurassic Church

(St. Anne's, Wardour Street)

We are going to be here this Thursday and every Thursday to help connect and motivate people who work in London visual effects! 

See you there! Bring along a friend! Make new friends! The VFX Union can only work for you when you get involved!

Look for the green flag!

VFXForum Living Wage calculator for Nuke!

UPDATED! Now works in Nuke, Maya, Houdini and anything that uses Python!

Is unpaid overtime driving down your hourly rate below the Living Wage?

One of the problems with unpaid overtime in the visual effects industry is that although we frequently work an extra hour or two (or six!), very few of us stop and think about the effect on our wages. It never occurs to most people that an extra 2 hours in the evening effectively means being paid 20% less per hour!For example, if someone is on an annual salary of £20K and they are working 40 hours per week, that works out to £9.62 per hour. This is OK. This VFX employee is earning just above the London Living Wage for the hours they put in at work.But what if that same person on £20K ends up working an extra 20 hours of unpaid overtime one week? At this point, they are not only making well below the London Living Wage at £6.41 per hour, but now they are earning below the National Living Wage and that is actually illegal.BECTU campaigns for every worker in the UK's profitable Film and TV industries to be paid the London Living Wage (£9.40 per hour) as an absolute minimum and if people are being paid less than that because of unpaid overtime, we'd like to know about it.It is illegal for you to be earning less than the National Living Wage which is currently £7.20 for people aged 25 and over or £6.70 for people aged 21-24. If you are earning less than this, then please let BECTU know. BECTU can help to take legal steps to ensure that employees are earning at least the National Living Wage and we will do it without identifying you personally.

So now for the fun bit...

Would you like a quick and easy way to calculate what you're making per hour after factoring in unpaid overtime? We've knocked together a little Nuke script which will make calculating your hourly rate easy peasy lemon squeezy!Download the text for our HourlyRateCalculator and copy/paste it in to your Nuke script. It will look like this:Simply enter your annual salary and the hours you work per week Load it in to the Viewer to see your calculated hourly rate. There you go! I hope you all find this little Nuke script useful and illuminating. Play around with it. Try out different values for your salary and hours and see what comes out. The HourlyRateCalculator can be a valuable tool for people at all levels of experience and pay grades. Maybe that extra £2K they're offering you to promote you to Lead on the next show is not going to be all that great once you factor in all the free overtime the facility will be expecting!Please feel free to share this script with anyone and everyone in VFX. Go ahead and install it in your Nuke Plug Ins so you can check your hours any time you need to!

Update 1! Now available to download as a .nk file from Nukepedia!

Download the HourlyRateCalculator here!

Update 2! Here is the same calculator as a Python script - which you can use in Nuke, Maya, Houdini and other Python friendly apps!

HourlyRateCalculator (Python)

Take the VFXforum Poll!

[polldaddy poll=9403364] 

Thursday VFX LunchMeet!

This Thursday and every Thursday, union members and other vfx people get together at our weekly lunch meet where we chat about things that are important to people in the vfx industry.

We will be meeting this Thursday April 28th  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingly Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag!

It's funny because it's true!

This Thursday and every Thursday, union members and other vfx people get together at our weekly lunch meet where we chat about things that are important to people in the vfx industry.

We will be meeting this Thursday April 21st  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingly Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag!

Won't I be fired if my employer finds out I've joined a union?

No – that would be illegal. UK law is crystal clear on this – no company can dismiss or discriminate against you for joining a union or taking part in it. As a member of BECTU, you get access to legal advice and representation. If a company tried to discriminate against you for being a member, we’d take them to an employment tribunal on your behalf and fight for your rights. We always protect our members.BECTU membership is also entirely confidential – the only people who know that you’re a member are the people you tell yourself. Many of our members are very open to their employers and each other about their membership, but if you’d rather keep your support private, then you don’t have to tell anyone.

See also:

• https://www.gov.uk/join-trade-union/trade-union-membership-your-employment-rights

This Thursday and every Thursday, union members and other vfx people get together at our weekly lunch meet where we chat about things that are important to people in the vfx industry.

We will be meeting this Thursday April 21st  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingly Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag!

Large BECTU survey points to serious concerns from MPC's visual effects workers

full article on BECTU's website here

Bare necessities missing for VFX workers at MPC

“Moving Picture Company appears to encapsulate everything that is wrong with employment in UK VFX in microcosm” says BECTU, the media and entertainment union.In a large-scale survey of people who have worked at London's Moving Picture Company (MPC), conducted in the week leading up to the UK premiere ofJungle Book, BECTU has found a workforce, both past and present, that has serious concerns about the company's coercive working culture, with widespread complaints from world-class VFX artists about pressures to work excessive unpaid overtime.In late 2015, BECTU started actively recruiting at MPC, which provided VFX services on Jungle Book.  In campaigning for union recognition, members were taken aback by management's hostility to this move; recruitment literature was removed and discussion about the union was banned in staff forums. Thankfully, part of the company's attempts to keep the union out resulted in small improvements to management attitudes towards their staff, but - as BECTU's survey shows - significant concerns remain.In particular, members were conscious of unfair pressure resulting from the company's culture of short-term contracts. MPC has an employee-profile that dramatically contradicts UK Screen's claims that "91% of the UK VFX workforce have a permanent contract."

Short term contracts increase workplace pressures

Instead, MPC appears to have an overwhelming preference for short-term contracts, with a surprising number of individual respondents (in free-text comments) making a direct link between this and the climate of pressure from managers, particularly on unpaid overtime.Significant numbers of staff were prepared to say that:

• MPC is not interested in a fair dialogue with independently-minded employees
• they have little faith in the 'Crew Forum' as a means of resolving problems fairly (current employees were significantly sceptical)
• work-life balance for VFX artists at MPC is often very bad.

There were widespread fears around:

• refusing to work unpaid overtime
• raising legitimate grievances with management
• management finding out about individuals' BECTU membership.

There was a significant number of respondents who complained of "unwelcome pressure" or feeling harassed by colleagues / management, and an even larger number of respondents who said that they knew of colleagues who had experienced such pressure. A very clear majority of the respondents who knew about unwelcome pressure believed that reporting such behaviour would be frowned upon (in many cases because management were the ones behaving badly).Paul Evans, BECTU national official, supporting VFX workers said:"These results are very disturbing and we hope that MPC will agree to work with us on a full independent survey on this subject so that it can be dealt with properly. The VFX sector is now a central part of the UK film industry. It is astonishing that most survey respondents were frightened that MPC would find out that they are members of a trade union, and that there was a widespread fear of raising concerns, reporting unwelcome pressure and asking for a responsive management."MPC appears to encapsulate everything that is wrong with employment in UK VFX in microcosm – particularly the way the business is structured to pressure people into working long hours without being paid for overtime. In a few clear cases, respondents reported direct bullying and intimidation from managers."If the UK VFX industry is to retain the talent that it needs to survive and grow, it needs to be a race to the top, and not to the bottom. We need London to lose its reputation for excessive unpaid overtime, and this forms part of BECTU’s wider campaign to ensure that everyone in the film industry is paid for all of the hours that they work." BECTU is the media and entertainment union for the UKread the full article on BECTU's website here 

This Thursday and every Thursday, union members and other vfx people get together at our weekly lunch meet where we chat about things that are important to people in the vfx industry.

We will be meeting this Thursday April 14th  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingley Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag!

JOIN THE DISCUSSION! Sick Pay: Part 2

How does your sick pay stack-up?

On our previous blog post we talked about sick pay, but do you ever wonder how your sick pay might stack up comparably? How it might stack up to other unionized sick pay?The VFX BECTU Union Branch welcomes any company's decision to give employees entitlement to some sick pay and it’s great to see employees speaking up and having serious dialogue about sick pay with some employers, but in reality offering 0.5 days per completed month, up to a maximum of 5.5 days within the first year of employment is peanuts in comparison to other employers in the media and entertainment industries. The fact that so many employees in VFX are on short-term contracts means that even this paltry offer rarely ever matures into anything that would cover more than a couple of days paid sickness leave. Especially when we as workers can feel guilty about using those days during crunch and having our colleagues pick-up the slack when we’re all a team and under the gun together. Not to mention that it seems more and more these days we are in shorter deadlines and crunchtime with more work to do than ever. Those sick days are of course used or lost and do not accumulate and when you change jobs, you must reenter another qualifying period even if you are returning to a company whom you’ve been employed with before. Although something is better than nothing, not every visual effects company has had this policy. In fact, while not London based, Rhythm and Hues actually offered cumulative employment periods. That mean that returning contract employees didn’t have to re-enter a qualifying period if rehired. Their previous time employed, even with breaks, was counted overall for qualifying for extra holidays, sick days and medical.We are aware that the VFX companies have a joint HR working group that is hosted by UK Screen and establishing something like this as a cross-sector arrangement would be a welcome development for the companies to offer fairly standard sickness terms to their owns staff and could help freelancers carry days with them to new companies. We also think that a cross sector arrangement might be beneficial helping visual effects companies come up to par with similar employers in the media and entertainment industries.BECTU has seen comparative surveys of London-based media companies holiday offerings and the BBC turns out to have the lowest sick-pay provision - and even they pay up to four weeks sick pay for each illness, and up to 13 weeks for all absences to all staff who have worked less than two years in the company (the entitlement doubles after two years). There is no qualifying period on this.If anything, because so many staff are on short-term contracts, we would expect an employer like this to offer much more generous terms. In the West End Theatres, while there are qualifying periods for earning more than Statutory Sick Pay, the industry has recognised that short-term contracts are a problem and the employers who are members of the Society of West End Theatres often use 'continuous employment in The West End' rather than continuous employment with individual employers as the qualifying measure for terms and conditions that vary based on length of service. This makes sense to us on at the VFX BECTU Branch, after all, many times it’s not the employees or the company’s fault when there are gaps in projects. We fully understand that things get pushed, deadlines change, and sequences get cut on the editing room floor. However, we must admit that this is felt most by those who have contributed so much to the success of countless Hollywood Blockbuster that make millions who inturn then must deal with uncertainty and gaps in employment. While the gaps may be unavoidable, surely starting over and over at the same companies and reentering qualifying periods is something we can change.  As shown above this would be completely achievable and is already done by the West End Theatres and indeed was even implemented by another visual effects company. This small change could make a world of difference for visual effects employees. It could even be broadened into a shared pension scheme, so workers don’t have to continuously roll individual pensions from one company to the next as they switch jobs and instead work through a “continuous employment in London Visual Effects” as the qualifying measure for terms and conditions that vary based on the length of service.

This Thursday and every Thursday, union members and other vfx people get together at our weekly lunch meet where we chat about things that are important to people in the vfx industry.

We will be meeting this Thursday March 24  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingley Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag

Thursday VFX Lunch Meet

Come along to the VFX Lunch Meet every Thursday in Kingley Court (off Carnaby St) from 1:00-2:00!

Visual effects BECTU members and people who work in visual effect are meeting up every Thursday to talk about the union and issues that are interesting to people who work in the VFX here in London. This is a chance to change our industry from the ground up by connecting with like minded people and creating our own grassroots movement. 

Please come and join us today and every Thursday from 1:00-2:00. All are welcome.

Look for the green flag!

JOIN THE DISCUSSION! This week’s topic: Sick Pay

Why Sick Pay is Good for Everyone.

You may have read on our last blog post about MPC’s sick pay policy change. But did you know that this came about from departmental meetings from employees? Meetings that were organised to discuss the ongoing union recognition bid at MPC and give employees’ a voice? Something that was a direct consequence of BECTU’s bid as an alternative to solve internal issues? Well done employees and MPC for giving employees under one year sick pay. It’s great to see that employees voices are finally getting heard.Before this change, employees had to work over one year before receiving any sick days. While in the short term this policy might be perceived to cost a company more money by allowing more employees to have sick pay, it should actually cost the company less money and here is why.Did you know that sick employees are estimated to cost employers twice as much as absenteeism from to illness due to  underperformance on those days?  Let’s be honest; when someone doesn’t feel well they don’t perform well; take longer to get better; and if contagious are likely spread their cold to colleagues.  But it’s not just pathogens their coworkers catch as this in turn will spread underperformance from a under weather workforce.  In a study of the H1N1 flu pandemic from 2009; results showed that outbreaks lasted longer in workplaces without paid sick days than those with sick days.Maybe that sounds extreme, but when a lot of us work long hours we don’t have as much time to rest. We probably eat too many unhealthy take away work dinners, forgo the exercise and feel stressed to boot. All four of these things studies have shown to wreak havoc on the human immune system making us more susceptible to colds. Now add to the fact that many of us travel on public transportation to work in one the biggest cities in the world with 8.5 million people, and that’s a heady recipe for flu city. This of course has a big knock on effect to projects under tight deadlines.So even the cost savings seems clear, under UK law, employers do not have to provide anything past statutory sick pay. To qualify workers must be off work for more than 4 days and results in 88.45 a week.  It is well known that union workers receive better sick benefits than their nonunion counterparts.  Better sick pay is just one of those many benefits. BECTU fully believes that everyone has a right to sick pay and should not feel compelled to come to work for fear of salary loss. 

Has this been an issue for you? Are you satisfied with sick pay policy where you work? Tell us about it! Want to have your say? Come along to our weekly lunch meet-up where we get together and chat about things that are important to people in the vfx industry.

We will be meeting this Thursday March 3  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingley Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag

Thank The Union For Paid Holiday!

If you're on a short term contract (i.e. less than 1 year) at one of London's Visual Effects facilities, here's a question for you:

Why do the facilities give you four weeks paid holiday?

Two reasons... 

1) Because if the facilities gave you any less paid holiday, it would be illegal!

2) Because the media and entertainment union BECTU (your visual effects union) launched a legal challenge against UK legislation in 1999 taking the fight for freelance contract workers all the way to the European Court of Justice. 

BECTU was successful and the courts ruled in June 2001 that the UK government was in breach of European employment law in denying freelance workers and those on short-term contracts the right to four weeks paid annual leave.

So never forget, before June 2001 if you were a freelance contract worker, you were not entitled to four weeks paid holiday like other staff colleagues. Now, thanks to BECTU fighting for your rights, paid holiday for freelance contract workers is the law.

Do you want a good reason to join the union? That's a pretty good reason. How about these... 

Do you want to keep your four weeks of paid holiday? 

Do you think that businesses would like to get out of having to give you paid holiday if they could? 

Do you think their lobbyists are working on ways to erode or remove this benefit right now? 

BECTU is the only force that fights for your interests when legislation is reviewed or new laws come up for a vote. 

This is what the union does for us - Thank you BECTU!

Support the union. Join now.

MPC Rethinks Its Sickness Policy

Yesterday MPC announced a U-turn to the company's sickness policy which had already been officially updated less than six months ago.With MPC's management perhaps feeling pressure from the the wave of VFX unionisation sweeping the industry, freelancers on 1 year or less contracts are now entitled to up to 5.5 days of sick pay per year. This is a huge improvement as up until now employees had 0.0 days of sick pay during their first year of employment.This simply would not have happened if artists in the MPC comp department had not previously joined BECTU in big numbers and asked the Union to formally put forward a recognition bid on their behalf.It's only by joining the Union and following a legal and democratic path established by the government that companies such as MPC will ever listen to its workforce.MPC keeps being openly hostile to the idea of a Union, depicting it as a "third party" who wants to dictate policies, while not realising that the Union is nothing but their own employees, who are unhappy about how they are being treated and who are asking for change.BECTU will keep pushing for recognition at all London VFX facilities in the months and years to come, and you can be sure to see more results like this happening.We hope you will join us. No more fear!

JOIN THE DISCUSSION! This week’s topic: Union Recognition Under Short Term Contracts

Union Recognition in an Industry with Precarious Short Term Contracts

One of the biggest obstacles to achieving union recognition for many workers in the film business is the rolling project based contract. As the majority of the main workforce for visual effects are not a full time employees, but on project based freelance contracts, it is normal to see VFX house grow and shrink with demand based needs. This usually means that Visual Effects personal change jobs far more frequently than other industries and thus union workers numbers shift between different visual effects companies. While initially it may seem more challenging to achieve union recognition with workers constantly being released and rehired; ultimately being in a union would actually be far more helpful in this situation than you might think. With union negotiations it would be more likely that contracts would be more consistent. For instance sick pay might be regulated for all union contracts no matter where the union employee works. That means company A can’t you make you wait a year to qualify for sick pay, while company B allows for sick pay after 3 months. The union could also negotiate for consecutive benefits, which means if company A doesn’t have work for 3 months and an employee goes to company B during the down time and then returns to company A as a rehire, that employee shouldn’t have to start from scratch to elect benefits and undergo another 3 month probationary period. So how would the union achieve this? Well obviously the end goal would be similar to other Hollywood Unions and have the majority of the work force unionised, so it wouldn’t matter where an employee works, their union contracts and benefits could go with them.  The most important thing is to stay in the union even if you change jobs. Even for non union shops, the union is beneficial to it’s members right away (see last week’s blog post). At union shops, even nonmembers receive better working conditions and pay than non union shops. Secondly is to open the discussion with other industry professionals about what improvements they’d like to see and how they could have a voice.  At the end of the day it’s the membership that will decide what progress is most beneficial and would lead them to have more fulfilling job satisfaction and working conditions. Thirdly is to be aware that BECTU has a good sized membership already that work at nearly every company in London. At the major studios and a lot of the smaller ones, members are not alone in their membership and it just might surprise you how many other members there are.  That said, this exactly why BECTU has to approach recognition at the right time to achieve the best results on their bids. Even if BECTU has the numbers, there has been precedent from other bids where-in companies unethically release enough workers through ending contracts in bid squashing attempts. As the majority of us are on short-term contracts this is something we must look out for and draw attention to when companies take this bullying tactic. Remember, we stand together. BECTU wants to make sure we achieve the best results for everyone, including working symbiotically with the VFX companies.Are you worried about union recognition on short term contracts? Want to have your say? Please come to our weekly lunch meet-up where we will be discussing this topic this week. Also please take our new poll below! We want to hear from you.

We will be meeting this Thursday March 3  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingley Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag

Poll: Who Would You Like to Win the 2016 VFX Oscar?

[polldaddy poll=9322159]

Quick 'n Easy Unpaid Overtime Poll

[polldaddy poll=9318268]

JOIN THE DISCUSSION! This week’s topic: BAFTA WINNERS AND NOMINEES!

CONGRATULATIONS BAFTA WINNERS AND NOMINEES!

This past Sunday was the 69th British Academy Film Awards.The union members at BECTU would like to congratulate this year’s winners and runner ups. It was a brilliant year for British Visual Effects where many of our colleagues have had the pleasure to work on the nominated films.Special Congratulations to Industrial Light and Magic, who was the winner of this year’s “Best Special Visual Effects” with STAR WARS: The Force Awakens.The Force Awakens had 2,100 visual effects shots created with more  than 1,000 artists around the world. It has grossed over $2 Billion worldwide and now is the third highest grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation.)This week we would like you to join us to have a chat about the latest BAFTA nominations and winner and what you especially liked from a visual effects standpoint. We also hope to have a fair few of those who contributed to these films to discuss what it was like from an inside perspective.

Come and join the discussion!

We will be meeting this Thursday 17 February  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingley Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag

What Kind of Contract Do You Have?

An open letter to all staff at MPC

Dear MPC Employee,We are sure that you've heard rumblings about a bid by BECTU to achieve Trade Union Recognition at MPC. We thought that it was time for the union to write to you directly - addressing some of the concerns that have been raised with us over recent weeks.We initially asked for union recognition in the Compositing and Roto-Prep departments of MPC because most of the staff in those departments asked us to do so.Most of the staff in those departments (65% on the day that we lodged our request) were already BECTU members. Your colleagues did this because they want a voice in the industry that they work in. So many of you are on short-term contracts, and because of this, our members told us that they were frightened to raise their concerns because they feared being labelled as a trouble-maker.We understand that, and we will not be disclosing the names of our individual members to employers.Having a formal role for BECTU at MPC would end that worry anyway, and that's why your colleagues requested it. They have told us that they don't like the assumption that they will work long, arbitrary hours of overtime. They don't like getting emails - at 9pm - berating them for not being at their desks.They don't like the culture of short-term contracts and short notice periods. They don't like the lack of structure in their careers with the company. In other sectors of the film industry, there are training paths and established career structures, and our members have a perception that their employers don't care about that.Since we lodged our first 'recognition' letter, our membership at MPC has grown considerably. Our total London VFX membership is four times bigger than it was in Summer 2015, and we are now thinking of broadening our campaign to other departments. But before we can do this, we need you to join the union.We would like to deal with one important issue that has been raised by MPC Staff.Every single bit of union activity will be 100% directed by BECTU members. Our work will not be driven by BECTU Officials or the wider union. We are a very democratic union.For a long time, BECTU has been trying to have a serious conversation with VFX employers about the long-hours situation. We have found it almost impossible to get the employers to engage with us properly, and because of this, BECTU's members asked us to mount a 'Paid Overtime' campaign.

We have to run campaigns like that when we can't have a serious dialogue with employers. We would much rather sit down and negotiate ways that long hours can be limited and planned-for.To be clear, we have no intention of asking for, or agreeing to, anything that will damage basic rates of pay. Other VFX employers manage this situation in better ways and we want serious conversations with MPC about how we can do this here. Paid overtime is only the solution if employers won't be sensible and negotiate properly on this issue. Just to underline...

• 100% of our policy positions with MPC will be decided, democratically, by BECTU members working for the company
•  100% of our negotiations will be directed by BECTU members working for the company

We will not argue for anything without agreeing it with our members first. Our members love their work and they want their company to succeed. We are not planning to do anything that will hurt MPC. We are attempting to make MPC do something that it plainly doesn't want to do: Negotiate with its staff about the working conditions that they are employed under.Our members have reported that, since union activity started, that some working conditions have improved slightly, and one or two perks have started appearing in your inboxes. The 9pm emails have stopped.... for now.We don't want to lose these gainsWe hope that you will consider joining BECTU. We enclose a membership form that offers a discounted joining rate if we get your form back (in the enclosed FREEPOST envelope) before February 21st 2016.In the meantime, please keep an eye on http://vfxforum.org - the VFX Union website - you will find details of our regular lunchtime meetups, and hear what other London VFX workers have to say about their working conditions.We think that you deserve a voice.With best wishesBECTU London VFX BranchDownload PDF here: An open letter to all staff at MPC

 Want to find out more? Come to our Thursday VFX LunchMeet every week at Kingley Court, Carnaby Street from 1:00-2:00 (look for the Green Flag!) 

JOIN THE DISCUSSION!

What if I don't work much VFX overtime?

Not everyone has the same issues or problems while working in visual effects. There has been a lot of discussion on the topic of overtime, but what if you don't work a lot of overtime? What can the union do for you, you might ask. While we have answered this topic on our FAQ page, there are still many things that union can do for you.

• When you join, you get access to lawyers and the experience of BECTU. They can help answer contract questions and generally advise you in all areas of UK working laws and employee rights.
• If you have issues at work, BECTU can come and help represent you with your employer as your advocate.
• You'll also be part of a growing network of UK colleagues who come together to discuss issues and talk about related VFX topics.
• The union could negotiate to ensure our members receive credits on films, as other unions have organized for their members.
• Furthermore there are a lot other benefits that collective bargaining can achieve beyond OT issues including better sick/holiday/flex-time benefits and redundancy packages in case of layoffs or better contractual notice (a topic we have recently posted about.) and lots of other changes that can improve your work conditions and strengthen the industry as a whole.
• There are even some great discounts and offers that you as a member receive, including an Apple Store discount. See BECTU's website for details.

This is still something you can contribute on. Please come to our weekly lunch and discuss with your vfx colleagues what you'd like to see come out of an agreement between workers and visual effects companies. You are the union - get involved! Also, please Take our latest poll on contracts!

LOCATION CHANGE:

We will be meeting this Thursday 11 February  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ Kingley Ct, Carnaby St. 

Look for the green flag

What Kind of Contract Do You Have?

From our FAQ Page:

What if I don't work much VFX overtime?

Then you’re very lucky! However, remember that this is issue is not just about you – it’s about your friends and colleagues too.How many of them have you seen regularly working late without pay? How often do you see them queueing up for the company dinner in your office each evening, especially around a deadline? Do you feel comfortable about that? Try asking some of them about the comments from the MPC Variety article or the VFX overtime survey – how many of them are genuinely happy about working conditions in the VFX industry right now?You don’t need to be working excessive VFX overtime yourself to agree with us that the industry needs to change.

See also:

• http://effectscorner.blogspot.ca/2015/03/visual-effects-and-overtime.html
• http://variety.com/2014/film/news/moving-picture-co-finds-valuing-artists-is-the-best-effect-1201346561/

Discounted Union Membership for a limited time only!

   Normally, your first years membership in the union is £10 per month but for a limited time, we have a special deal: Any new members working in VFX who join the union this week (before the end of the day on Sunday 14th Feb) will be able to join for a rate of £7.50 per month for the first year of membership! That's an annual savings of £30!You can do this online as long as you...

• put "VFX Branch" as the answer to the question "Branch - if known"
• tick "Freelance" as your employment status*
• on stage 5a of the online application, you use this Promo Code: PBSSFY

* If you're not freelance, it's OK. BECTU will confirm your employment details once the application has been received.  If you prefer to fill in a form and post it, you can click the image below to download a form to print out.  

JOIN THE DISCUSSION! This week’s topic: Contracts

In December, UK CEO Sarah Mackey stated that according to the Creative Skillset 2014 Workforce Survey '91% of the UK VFX workforce have a permanent contract'. However, our experience has been that this simply is not true for the vast majority of UK VFX workers.We took a closer look at the survey, and found that 38% of those permanent employees were classified as “senior/managers or supervisors,” and roughly a quarter (26%) considered themselves “professionals/executives.” The rest were supporting roles to VFX artists.The survey had 332 responses -  about 6% of the estimated 5300 UK VFX workers. We would respectfully suggest that 6% of the workforce isn’t a large enough sample to accurately represent the true state of the UK VFX industry.We believe that majority of VFX workers are on project based contracts, and we know how much stress and worry can come around with looming end dates every few months. Last week at our VFX lunch, we talked about contractual notice and we’d like to continue the discussion surrounding contracts.Is this an issue for you? Are you on a contract? Take our poll! Want to give your input on solutions? Please come to our weekly lunch meet-up where we will be discussing this topic this week. Come and join the discussion!

We will be meeting this Thursday 2 February  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ The Plaza, Oxford Street

Look for the green flag

What Kind of Contract Do You Have?

JOIN THE DISCUSSION! This week's topic: Contractual Notice

After overtime, one of the biggest gripes about working in VFX is contractual notice. Many companies have a majority of PAYE (Pay As You Earn) workers on rolling contracts that can be anywhere from 1 week to 1 year.With projects schedules often changing last minute, some workers receive extension notices inside of two-weeks from their final “end date.” A handful have even been given notice the same week, asking them for extensions or confirming their termination date. This makes it extremely hard to line up future jobs or plan accordingly. Especially if you enjoy working for the company and would like to stay on.With this kind of insecurity, we think that it’s hard to plan for the future and would like to work with Visual Effects Companies to change this.  While some schedule changes can be out of VFX companies hands, we do believe that there is some room for improvement and better dialogue so workers can prepare for any sudden changes in contract, with-in a fair working notice period.Has this happened to you? Want to give your input on solutions to the problem? Please come to our weekly lunch meet-up where we will be discussing this topic this week. Come and join the discussion!  

We will be meeting this Thursday 28th January  1:00 – 2:00 pm  @ The Plaza, Oxford Street

Look for the green flag