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Who Does SIWA Cover?

SIWA covers the following Occupational Groups:

Composer | Individuals who create or modify musical compositions for screen productions.
Director | Individuals who direct the making of screen productions by visualising scripts while guiding performers and technicians to capture a screen production’s vision.
Game Developer | Individuals who work on, or contribute to, computer-generated games and who do not fall within the description of the composer, director, performer, or writer.
Performer | Individuals who portray roles in screen productions, including stunt persons, narrators, voice-over actors, extras, singers, musicians, and dancers.
Technician (Post-Production) | Individuals who work on, or contribute to, screen productions during the post-production phase, and who do not fall within the description of any other occupational group.
Technician (Production) | Individuals who work on, or contribute to, screen productions before the post-production phase, and who do not fall within the description of any other occupational group.
Writer | Individuals who write, edit, contribute to, and evaluate scripts and stories for screen productions.

what types of work does SIWA Cover?

SIWA covers the following types of screen production work:

Computer Generated Games
Films
Programmes (one-offs, Mini-Series & TV Series, etc)
TV Commercials (shorter than 5 minutes in duration)

What types of work doesn't siwa cover?

SIWA DOES NOT cover the following types of screen production work:

Advertising (longer than 5 minutes in duration)
Amateur productions
Games Shows
Live Events
Music & Dance
News & Current Affairs
Recreation & Leisure
Religious Content
Sports Programmes
Talk Shows
Training & instructional
Variety Shows

What happens now?

Now that the Act is the legislation, all individual contracts have six new rules that must be adhered to:

Duty of good faith applies between workers and their engagers.
Individual contracts must be in writing and agreed prior to work commencing.
Engagers must follow process rules for making and varying individual contracts.
Individual contracts must contain mandatory terms (existing contracts had until the end of December 2023 to comply).
Terms must not be worse than any applicable collective contract (once it has been negotiated).
Engagers can’t cancel contracts in retaliation for workers exercising their rights.

Who are the Worker Organisations & engager Organisations?

These are the organisations that are legally permitted under SIWA to collectively bargain on behalf of either workers or organisations:

Current Registered Worker Organisations, representing workers in the screen industry:

Engager organisations, representing engagers:

SPADA

Individual Producers and Production Companies can be Engagers under the act to negotiate Enterprise Collective Agreements.

What is Collective Bargaining?

Collective bargaining under SIWA is the process of creating enforceable terms and conditions for screen industry workers, which can only be undertaken by Worker Organisations and an Engager Organisation or an Individual Producer or Production Company, as outlined above.

Bargaining will occur for two types of collective contracts: Occupational and Enterprise. These contracts will set out:

Terms of engagement
Working conditions
Minimum pay rates

Rules governing the collective bargaining process are:

Must be done in good faith.
Once bargaining begins, a collective contract must eventually result.
Industrial action is not allowed.
All collective contracts must contain certain Mandatory Terms.

Once bargaining has been successfully completed, collective contracts will set new minimum terms for the different occupations work in the industry. Meaning that pay rates in an occupational collective contract will become the new minimum pay rate for work done by that occupation. Producers and Production Companies and individual workers can still negotiate above the minimum terms set by collective contracts, and through the individual contract process.

What are the different types of contracts?

Under SIWA there are three different contracts types covered by the Act. Depending on the type of work you are undertaking you will be on one of the following:

Individual Contracts | These contracts are negotiated between an individual worker and their engager (e.g. a screenwriter and a producer). The terms of an individual contract must not be worse than the corresponding term in any relevant enterprise and occupational contract.
Enterprise Collective Contracts | These contracts will cover one or more screen industry worker , performing a type of work on a specific production or with a production company. Negotiated by a worker organisation and an engager (e.g. SIGANZ and Made Up Productions Ltd.).
Occupational Collective Contracts| These contracts will cover all work done by an occupation group (e.g. Composer) Negotiated by a worker organisation and an engager organisation (e.g. SMSG and Spada).

All three types of contracts must contain mandatory terms. These are terms that the engager cannot opt out of or negotiate below, they are:

A term saying parties will comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act and Human Rights Act
Bullying, discrimination, and harassment processes (template policy available here)
Dispute resolution processes
Termination notice periods and payments

Both Enterprise and Occupational collective contracts need to include the following mandatory terms: