Film workers are challenging in the High Court decisions made by the Labour Court to overturn awards and rulings made in the workers’ favour at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
In December 2023, the WRC made cumulative awards of €434,216 to 22 members of the Irish Film Workers Association (IFWA) against the co-producers of a number of global box office movies, including the multi-award winning Banshees of Inisherin.
However, on appeal, movie firm, Metropolitan Films International Ltd has been successful to date in having all WRC awards overturned at the Labour Court where rulings have been made.
The latest WRC rulings to be overturned on appeal at the Labour Court concern a €30,000 payout to stagehand Jason Arkins and a separate €7,495 award to Head of Department/stagehand, Paul Arkins who worked on the production of Vikings.
In the two new cases, the Labour Court upheld the appeals by Metropolitan Films International as it found no evidence that the movie firm was the employer of the film workers concerned and as a result has no jurisdiction to hear the substantive matter.
A spokeswoman for Metropolitan Films International has said “all five of the Labour Court appeal hearings to date have resulted in judgments in favour of Metropolitan Films International Limited setting aside previous WRC adjudications”.
Liz Murray, industrial relations officer for the IFWA confirmed that High Court proceedings have been instituted against the Labour Court concerning earlier decisions made on cases relating to film workers, John Arkins, William Hanlon and Raymond Lyons.
Ms Murray said that the two new Labour Court rulings concerning Jason Arkins and Paul Arkins “will also be referred to the High Court” this month.
The High Court case concerning John Arkins relates to his failed 2020 WRC case against the producers of Sally Rooney’s Normal People and the Oscar-winning movie, Poor Things, Element Pictures Ltd.
Ms Murray said that the High Court has decided that all three initial cases will “travel together” and they are to come before the High Court later this month.
The workers “are asking the High Court to quash the decisions of the Labour Court because they contend that the Labour Court has breached S44(1) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015,” she said. The decisions of the Labour Court “have far reaching implications for workers in the film production sector and the damage these decisions has done cannot be underestimated,” she added.
She argues that as a result of a film worker being employed by a once off Designated Activity Company (DAC), “no matter how many times the producer company sets up a DAC, the producer company is now absolved of every piece of employment legislation, such as the Unfair Dismissals Act, the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act as they can never acquire the service necessary to pursue claims under the legislation”.
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