These are not contracts for assembly line workers. If someone offered you a contract like that for your job then yes it would be weird and unacceptable, but you are not a performer. When a performer reaches a level where the value they add to the show is worthy of residuals and better conditions then they will be able to negotiate that through an agent. Otherwise they can either choose the contract or not, no one made them become an actor and just like any profession where there a many, many more hopefuls than winners, management set the terms.

The point you miss here is not the actors, but the other artists and workers who are not so much “chasing the dream” in the performing arts, but are grinding out rotomation or hammering sets day after day for years. They weren’t chasing residuals or special treatment but were none the less denied the right to claim legitimate employee status as a result of the actors union attempting to take a production hostage.

And connecting the political motives of one producer to the conditions of the local contracts? Just smacks of muckraking.

As you’ve indicated, really the only compensation we get is to laugh at the ludicrous grandiosity of the contract clauses (they can’t take that away from us):

“Producer shall have the unlimited right to exhibit and exploit all works hereunder and audio and visual excerpts therefrom in all forms and mediums now known or hereafter devised or discovered throughout the world in perpetuity without any further amounts owing to Performer.”

And yes, in order to add piquancy to the punchline, in many of the TV contracts I’ve sighted “the world” is replaced with “the known universe”. I used to quip that the only scenario the lawyers had let slip was the future discovery of time-travel and the possibility of selling, for instance, “Hercules” to the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Repugnant though it is, there should be no surprise that Key consistently aligns himself with the interests of millionaires and billionaires against NZ workers – everything in his history is congruent with that choice. That he appears to be gleeful while trading away the working conditions of his subjects seems inexplicably grotesque until one remembers that as Prime Minister he is keeping his eye on the big picture – by greasing up to the moguls in Hollywood and Wellywood he’s bought himself something a currency trader’s wealth never could: proximity to coolness and a retirement package complete with dinner invites from film directors and celebrities. Let’s hope that retirement comes very soon.

Meanwhile, hot off the wire…

Press Release: The Office of the Prime Minister and the Hollywood Moguls Association

(For immediate release)

PM “Very comfortable”; Hollywood Moguls “Surprised and Delighted”

Prime Minister John Key today reported that he was “very comfortable” with the most recent tranche of financial and legislative concessions he has granted to Hollywood big-hitters in his ongoing attempts to lure them to New Zealand. The Hollywood Moguls Association have in turn declared themselves “surprised and delighted” with the flexibility shown by New Zealand’s Prime Minister. “We are surprised and delighted by the flexibility shown by Prime Minister Keys” they said. “The flexibility shown is simply outstanding and we are heartened by Prime Minister Keys’ repeated assurances that he is very comfortable with the positions he has adopted on our behalf. In all sincerity we can say that we have never before dealt with a world leader who has been so flexible and so comfortable with such a wide range of accommodating positions.”

Ends.

You too will have to one day face the frailties of health, age, and market whims.

The invulnerability of youth and inexperience does not last forever.

Kiwis don’t seem to realise that John Key is not here for the benefit of New Zealand and/or New Zealanders; once Kiwis get that simple point any past, present and future actions by Key will begin to make sense. He doesn’t want workers to get manufacturing jobs; he doesn’t want public transport to be available for those who need it. He wants Kiwis to be indebted and weak. He has achieved both aims.