Advisory Committee Update #3

At the May meeting, Council added an Atlantic Advisory (Robert Seale, liaison), responsible for linking up with the Atlantic membership. Mandate development for a Diversity Committee is underway, and will be complete for June. I'll post details here when that is done, and info for all the advisories is available at EQUITYONLINE. Members who expressed an interest in participating in the new advisories will be contacted regarding involvement. 

In addition, Council made some determinations on the following suggestions:

Senior Artists – Equity took part in the Senior Artist Research Project, concluding in 2010, and Council will be reviewing those results to determine how to best put them to use at the committee level. We'll be coming back to this in June.

CTA Level 2 Monitoring - Staff will be preparing a comprehensive engagement report at the end of the summer, incorporating contract data and patterns observed to that point. Council has deferred decision on a committee until that report comes in and we have more information.

At this point, Council has completed most of its work on the advisory committees for the term. As previously noted, there are a couple to be finalized in the next month or so, and some proposals are slated to come forward again in October for review. Of the remaining topics, all represented less than 1% of the submissions, and will be addressed as discussion topics throughout the term, rather than as committees.

We received over 600 submissions, on a huge range of topics, and all were very illuminating. Even those that did not result in a committee will be used to inform Council's discussions going forward, and quite a few will be of use to staff in determining topics for upcoming negotiations, and improving service. 

Council's job is to act as an informed agent of the membership, and thanks to your input, we are able to do the job that much better.

Did you know? - Concessions

If you have been a member of Equity for any appreciable period of time, you have probably heard mention of the term "concession" in relation to a contract. You may even have been consulted by staff on whether or not a concession should be granted for a particular project. However, few members understand the concession process as a whole – how it operates outside the scope of an individual production.

It all starts with negotiation…

Equity and member representatives sits down with an engager (or engager group, such as PACT) and negotiate terms for the hiring of Equity members, based on member input. What results are a set of terms that are mutually agreed-upon. That is important to understand, because it means that both parties have a binding agreement that the terms represent a workable and fair approach to engagement. Promulgated (non-negotiated) agreements are then derived from these negotiated agreements, again in consultation with the membership, and tailored to specific types and scales of theatrical production.

So, if engagement terms have already been agreed to, why are concessions even necessary? Good question.

The reality is, of course, that live performance is not something that fits within neat boxes in every conceivable circumstance. The agreement terms have been constructed so that the vast majority do, however we know that unusual situations will occur from time to time. Concessions are intended to deal gracefully with those circumstances when the agreed-upon terms fail to do so. Each year, almost exactly 10% of productions receive a concession on some aspect of the contract.

For example, it may be something peculiar to a show (such as the need to engage a large number of non-professional performers), something peculiar to a tour (a limited flight or ferry schedule), something peculiar to a venue (a small, local company resident in an overlarge theatre), etc. In some of these cases, it might be completely impossible to fully comply with a scale agreement. In others, strict compliance might turn out to be an undue financial burden on the theatre. 

It is for these and similar situations that concessions are intended – they allow the engager and Equity to come to a one-time arrangement to alter an agreement to suit the circumstances. In the case of negotiated agreements, the standard of "special circumstances" is quite high, as the engager is expected to live up to the terms it agreed to in negotiation. Concessions are not meant to allow deviation from standard terms just because an engager would rather not stick to their agreement.

Although staff is responsible for reviewing and approving applications for concessions, Council has established firm rules governing how this is done. These may be found in EL-11 of our policy document, but in summary they are: 

• Staff cannot grant a concession that would be inconsistent with the long-term Ends of Equity. 
• Staff cannot grant a concession without ensuring that a majority of the affected members (where known) are in agreement with the change. Where the affected members are not yet confirmed by contract, they must be informed of the concession in a rider at the time of contracting. 
• Staff cannot grant a concession except where it would alleviate a legitimate financial hardship to the engager, or where the engager offers at least an equal benefit ("quid pro quo") in exchange. 
• Staff cannot grant concessions that would compromise the health and safety of members. 
• In making a determination to grant a concession, staff must consult with knowledgeable members in the discipline or region affected. 

So… If you are already contracted on a production that has become the subject of a concession request, you will be consulted. Member input is not the only thing that decides the matter, but agreement by the affected artists is mandatory. Where no one has yet been engaged, or where staff believe that the matter would benefit from some bigger picture input as well, staff will also consult with a small panel of knowledgeable members from the affected region or discipline. Sometimes, the nature of the concession is such that it can only be properly decided by the artists who will be under contract; in these cases, staff will ask the engager to wait until hiring is complete before submitting the request.

Most concessions are approved upon initial review and consultation with the engager, the financial hardship or benefit quid pro quo being clearly evident. In some cases, staff will go back to the engager and request an alternative arrangement that is more tenable, and the concession will be approved on that basis. All in all, roughly 90% of concessions requests are granted. The remainder are denied because the request has not met one or more of Council's policy criteria, or because the affected members were not in majority agreement.

So, that is the concession process in a (rather large) nutshell. Along with the strength of written terms of engagement comes the challenge of making them work for an infinite variety of theatrical endeavours. By permitting reasonable accommodation in our agreements, we are able to incorporate important flexibility while preserving the benefits and protections members have asked us to put in place.

Honours Schedule Change

Since 1975, Council has regularly solicited nominations from members across the country for deserving honourees in (now) four categories. The nominations and support material are reviewed by a Council committee, and the final candidate list is presented to Council for approval. The awards themselves are presented at a honours evening to which the general membership is invited.

Going forward, Council will be changing the honours schedule from an annual to a biennial activity, and will be combining the presentation event with the national AGM. This change is intended to save money, since the expense of holding the event is not inconsiderable, and neither is the cost of bringing honourees in from across the country. The new schedule will maintain Equity's ongoing commitment to peer recognition, while recognising the financial situation in which the association currently finds itself. 

The first presentation under the new schedule will take place in February 2014. Nominations already received in 2013, as well as any held over from previous years, will be considered for presentation at that time.

The upside of this change, however, is that if you have been considering nominating a colleague for one of the honours, you now have a bit more time in which to do it. If you catch yourself thinking "people really ought to know how special that person is", head to the nearest computer, or give the office a call, and submit a nomination. That is exactly the kind of person the honours exist to celebrate.

                                                                                       

Life Membership is awarded to members who have made an outstanding contribution to the performing arts within the jurisdiction of Equity. It recognises not only an extraordinary career, but also colleagues who have gone "above and beyond" in other ways that contribute to the benefit of either Equity or its members.

Honorary Membership is awarded to an individual who is not an Equity member, but who has made an outstanding contribution to Equity and/or its members, or to the performing arts within the jurisdiction of Equity.

The Larry McCance Award is awarded to a member or to a former staff member, who has made an outstanding contribution to the Association and its members, through elected representation, notable service on staff, or other exemplary action and advocacy.

The CAEA Award of Distinction may be given to any organisation, individual, or group of individuals, excluding current staff, in recognition of significant contribution within the realm of live performance benefitting the membership of the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.

Full details on the honours categories, as well as a nomination form and instructions, can be found here. Nominations are accepted all year, and will automatically be considered for the next available round of honours, depending on the submission date.

Dancers at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens join Equity

Welcome! Bienvenue!

Did you know? - Learning more about Council

Ok, I'll concede right off the top that attending a board meeting may not be most people's idea of a fun way to spend an hour or seven, but it's good to know you can if you would like to. All regular meetings of Council are open to members in good standing.

If you would like to attend a future meeting, drop us at note at president@caea.com in advance, and we'll set it up. Generally, meetings are on the 4th Monday of January, March, April, May, August, September and November, and the 4th Sunday/Monday in February, June and October. Exact dates are posted in the Calendar section of the Equity website.

There is other stuff available to you, too…

You have elected Council to govern the organisation on your behalf, and we are committed to being transparent about how we do that. Members have ongoing access to agendas, minutes and the recent monitoring reports on all aspects of Equity; these can be found in the Members Only section of the website. Our policy document (the Big Book of Board Rules) can be found here.

If you would like to know even more about Council, and how it operates, you can find a series of articles throughout this blog.

Advisory Committee Update #2

At yesterday's meeting, work on the next two advisory mandates were completed. There is now an Ontario Caucus (Mark Brownell, liaison), responsible for linking up with the full breadth of the Ontario membership, and an Opera Advisory (Wade Nott, liaison), responsible for connection with all disciplines working in opera across the country. As with the others, members who expressed an interest in participating in these will be contacted regarding involvement.

In addition, Council made some determinations on the following suggestions:

Insurance – the majority of the submissions in this area centred around the desire to strike a committee to review our insurance plan and propose improvements. However, the plan has just completed a major overhaul and was relaunched only three weeks ago. Council would still like to consider striking this committee as a feedback mechanism on the new plan, but will table the idea for 6 months and review it again at that point. This will allow more time for members to have experience with the plan.

Auditions and Engagement Opportunities – Council needs more information on the possible mandate for these two committees, and I will be contacting those who expressed an interest in participating to see if we can flesh that out a bit.

Member Education – this has a lot of overlap with our new Communications and Education Committee (Aaron Willis, liaison). We will be reviewing this to see if there is a specific branch of the proposal that would be a good mandate for a separate committee in this area, or if the committees are best combined entirely.

Diversity – mandate development for this committee is underway. As a side note, this is also a hot topic in general for Council, and will likely dovetail with that work.

Agreement Ratification – this topic is already on the Council agenda for debate. Council will table this suggestion until that discussion is underway, so that if a committee is needed to complete that work, a mandate can be developed to suit.

New Members – Council is about 80% done on reviewing our approach for welcoming new members into the association. We will table this suggestion for 6 months until that work is complete, and a committee mandate can be created in keeping with the update.

Working Conditions – no committee will be struck for this topic, since working conditions vary widely across the different agreements and policies, and ample input opportunity is already available as part of the negotiation and review cycles for each.

Rehearsal Models – The Directors, Choreographers and Fight Directors Committee (Vinetta Strombergs, liaison) has agreed to take this on.

Regional/local Support Committees – mandate development is underway for one to support the Atlantic Region.

Review work will continue on the remaining suggestions.

Advisory Committee Update #1

The first four of the new Advisory Committees were formally struck at today's Council Meeting, and they are:

• Equity Independent and Small-Scale Theatre Resource Committee - Mark Brownell, committee liaison 
• Member Communications and Education Committee - Aaron Willis, committee liaison 
• Directors, Choreographers, and Fight Directors Committee - Vinetta Strombergs, committee liaison 
• Stage Management Committee - Allan Teichman, committee liaison 

The contact info for members who expressed an interest in participating in these committees has been passed on to the liaison for consideration. Because each committee has a requirement for representative composition, it will be up to the liaison to put together a group meeting that standard.

In April, Council will begin work on the next set of committees, so stay tuned...