The APG (Advertising Production Guild) has been created to improve working conditions for people engaged in the production of Television Commercials and Branded Content in the UK.
People commonly referred to as Crew.
As a large percentage of Crew are freelance, no one can force Crew to accept conditions that they find unacceptable. And over the past few years, more and more Crew have found themselves working on Productions where long shoot days have become the norm and working conditions have been intolerable.
When people are overworked, people make mistakes, and in this business, mistakes can cost lives. The health and welfare of Crew needs to be at the forefront of all Production considerations. And at the moment, this is not the case.
Something has to change. And the APG is proposing to make those changes. Changes that should benefit Crew, Production Companies, Advertising Agencies, and Clients.
The APG has created a Crew Council that includes members from many of the departments one sees on every call sheet. They welcome all Crew categories into their fold. No one should feel excluded.
The Crew Council has worked on creating a new way of looking at budgeting, scheduling and the safe shooting of TV commercials.
Organisations such as BECTU have a long-standing record for improving the conditions by which their members work. It is the APG’s aim to mirror their success, by filling a space in the industry offering T&C’s tailored to Crew.
Crew have all seen drives by Procurement to low-cost centres across the globe over the past two decades. Crew all know the levels of technical ability these places can offer, and at a cost the UK can’t always match. This will always be the case, and it’s not something that should concern Crew, now, or in the future.
The UK Crew can exist perfectly well alongside our production cousins around the globe. And the APG concerns about the health and welfare of Crew are mirrored in all of the countries in which we produce commercials.
There will always be very good reasons for shooting in the UK. And none of these will change simply because Crew are determined to look at the terms of our employment in the UK.
UK crew are among the best in the world, and should be proud of their place in the history of film production, but should be equally determined to ensure that working conditions match our incredible creative and technical standards.
The APG do not doubt that the last two years have been hard for everyone, and one of the positives to come out of this terrible Pandemic is people in all walks of life have taken steps to reclaim a better balance between their working and home lives.
And at the very heart of everything the APG stands for is the welfare of those Crew that work so diligently for Production Companies and their clients.
The APG fully supports our industry's drive for more ethical, diverse and environmentally motivated production - and these admirable drives have inevitably come at a cost. As an industry everyone has accepted these increases
wholeheartedly in order to make sure important issues are addressed.
And it’s in that exact same spirit that the APG and its members are saying to the partners who employ us that it’s time Crew took charge of the conditions under which they work; for the benefit of all; members and employers.
Over the next few weeks, the APG will address in more detail the issues that are outlined above; including the health and welfare of the Crew and the Terms & Conditions they work to, and our schedule for these terms to come into effect.
As the APG move toward these important changes, they will, of course, welcome your support and engagement in this process.
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