ALL Actors! We need your voices to be heard.
We need the world to see and hear that our industry supports transformation. That our industry supports FAIR compensation that INCLUDES actor royalties.
We need you to record a video message and put it on your online presence! Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We need all our voices out there under one banner so that when SAGA delivers this message to Parliament, it is a message from all of us.
SAGA Members!
The notion of Financial Planning has many of us freelancers burying our heads in the sand. And for good reason; our income is erratic at best and our job security is nonexistent. As independent contractors we enjoy none of those safety-nets afforded the regular nine-to-fivers: pension fund; paid leave, including sick-leave; unemployment insurance; medical aid and access to workman’s compensation and, for those fortunate enough in these tough economic times, an annual bonus. No, we’re independent contractors, we’re free agents.
The Copyright Amendment Bill and the Performers Protection Amendment Bill are drafted so that actors will never again be forced to sign away all their rights in exchange for a meagre daily performance fee. Never again will actors be mocked and told to ‘either take it or leave it’. The Bills stand for industry transformation and they have alrea
Being ‘between jobs’ has long been a euphemism for ‘unemployment’ but, is a freelance actor ever in fact ‘employed’? In South Africa, at any rate, even when an actor is working, he or she is not employed, but rather ‘contracted’. You see, actors are considered to be ‘Independent Contractors’: in other words, to be ‘self employed’. Aye, there’s the rub.
The South African Guild of Actors hosted a series of conferences in Johannesburg and Cape Town aimed at strengthening actors’ rights to decent working conditions and fair compensation.
“Has anyone had a call from the Taxman to say you owe him money?” An awkward murmur rumbles through the gathering, but no-one’s putting up their hand.
“Not?” Still, there are no volunteers.
SAGA has received a number of requests from our members seeking clarity on our Guild’s position on recent SABC policy changes and our relationship with CCIFSA, which has publicly stated its support for SABC COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
When the long-running soap-opera ‘Generations’ went off air, the 16 actors at the centre of the storm filed papers with the CCMA, challenging their dismissal. The first question the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration had to answer is whether or not it has jurisdiction at all in the matter: are the actors ‘employees’ as defined in the labour legislation, or are they in fact common law ‘independent contractors’.
The South African Guild of Actors is in the process of negotiating with various stakeholders on contractual matters, particularly those governing the further commercial exploitation of the work of performers in the broadcast media. And do you know what? We are being heard.
