Casting sessions for actors could be required to have at least three people present and a notice on the wall guaranteeing no harassment, under proposals drawn up by the performers’ union Equity in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations.
The union, which represents more than 40,000 actors, performers and other creative workers, is also pushing to end what it says are increasingly restrictive non-disclosure agreements stopping people talking about behaviour on film sets and other places.
Equity announced an investigation into how better to protect its members in November, following a scandal that began with the claims against Weinstein and engulfed large parts of the entertainment industry.
The union’s general secretary, Christine Payne, is giving evidence on Wednesday to the Commons women and equalities committee as part of a hearing about sexual harassment in the workplace.
Ahead of the session, Payne said the union’s action plan, which will be published in February, recommends a series of measures to better protect members, including a rule that all casting sessions should have a third person in the room along with the performer and casting director or director.
These should also only be held in “appropriate workspaces” rather than hotel rooms or the home of the casting director, Payne said.
“Casting is a recruitment, that’s what it is,” she said. “It’s just a different name for finding a worker to do a job.” The improved standards would also require a notice in the casting room to guarantee no inappropriate language or behaviour.
She said: “We want that to be visually present at every audition. And it’s very achievable. If it’s on the wall and an actor walks into the room, they know it’s respected, it’s acknowledged.”
The ultimate aim would be for similar notices to be visible in staff areas at theatres and other creative workspaces, to reinforce the message and inform workers, she said.
With non-disclosure agreements while these were necessary in some industries, Payne said, there was a need to check their scope.
“If you’re the producers of Star Wars and you need to send the script out to an actor, then of course there’s intellectual property rights and confidentiality, and we completely respect that,” she said.
“But these have been progressively getting more restrictive. It used to be, ‘We’ll send you the script and you can’t tell anybody.’ Now it’s, ‘You can’t say anything about what happens in the audition, and if you get the job you can’t say anything about what happens on set.’”
While measures to combat harassment have been made in other areas of the industry – the UK’s Casting Directors’ Guild has recently announced a new code of conduct – Payne said Equity’s efforts were an attempt to reach a hugely disparate membership, which also includes comedians and those working in circus and on cruise ships.
The temporary nature of so much entertainment employment meant education work to give performers “the knowledge and skills on how you challenge inappropriate behaviour” was vital, Payne said.
“We’ve often referred to it as a culture of fear, and that’s where a lot of the perpetrators have hidden,” she said.
“If you’re in a permanent job, it’s not easier to come forward and say what has happened, but when your current work ends in three weeks and you might be reliant on the same people for your next job then that fear, that insecurity and vulnerability, is very acute.”
