Janice Turner has forwarded me some interesting stuff from one of our union kin in the US, The Directors Guild of America (DGA).
Their mission statement includes a dual focus:
- Cultural diversity is reflected in the stories that Directors tell
- Diversity and inclusion ensuring that everyone has a fair chance of working in their industry regardless of their personal background.
Section 15 [pdf] of the DGA’s Basic Agreement with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is well worth a look.
Because the DGA places great importance on publishing data on the ethnicity of people working on productions, their agreement actually mandates the employers to provide it.
It also has to be said that, as far as Janice can see, their data is better than anything that she’s found elsewhere (including information in this data about UK productions that you can’t get in the UK!).
The bargaining relationship between employers organisations and unions in the US lends itself to nailing down details like this in a way that the UK one is less able to.