According to Press Release the provisional collective agreement on working hours, bonuses, retirement provision in the broadcasting pension fund, salary increases, the collective agreement for actors and the collective agreement for young filmmakers are rejected by the collective bargaining commission for filmmakers.
Background: In the eighth round of collective bargaining for the approximately 25,000 film professionals, key points for a provisional collective agreement were agreed on 16 July between the United Services Union (ver.di), the actors' union BFFS and the Producers' Alliance. On 16 September, the collective bargaining commission of film professionals in ver.di finally discussed the agreement and assessed it as insufficient. The failure of the collective bargaining negotiations was thus also decided and communicated to the collective bargaining partner Produktionsallianz.
The production alliance has responded with an offer to continue collective bargaining. The date for the resumption of negotiations has not yet been set, but the ver.di film workers' wage commission has accepted the offer for further negotiations.
The ver.di bargaining commission will then focus on achieving improvements to the key points of the collective agreement reached on 16 July. Further details can be found here.
On the other hand, the bargaining committee intends to maintain all the collective bargaining results achieved.
The expansion of the company pension scheme to include productions for streaming services, private broadcasting and cinema productions should come into force from the beginning of 2025 and also be declared generally binding.
Working hours are to be limited to twelve hours and bonuses are to be introduced for the eleventh and twelfth hours of the day.
The extension of the rest period to 11 ½ hours if the working time exceeds eleven hours.
The salary increases are to be 2.5 per cent from March 2025 and 2.5 per cent from January 2026 over the term of the collective wage agreement until the end of 2026.
A new collective agreement for up-and-coming filmmakers should provide for lower minimum fees in stages depending on the size of the budget compared to the standard fee and, depending on the commercial success of the film, provide for binding additional payments to close the difference to the standard fee.
This collective agreement and the general collective agreement on working hours and other basic working conditions are scheduled to run until August 2027.
No agreement could be reached on protection and compensation regulations for the use of AI in a collective agreement for filmmakers behind the camera. These are to be included again in an evaluation agreement.
With the failure of the previous negotiations declared by the collective bargaining commission on 17 September, the previous minimum rules from the TV FFS will no longer apply. The employment contracts to be concluded in future will then be agreed on the basis of statutory minimum provisions. Ver.di members can obtain legal advice on this from the ver.di trade union secretaries: filmunion.verdi.de/about-us/contact
