I am writing this letter to you to point out and make clear the contractual, legal and ethical issues with your job advertisement. I hope you take note of what I say so that you can correct any mistakes that could land you in trouble with the law.
Contracts are legal agreements that relate to terms of employment for both sides. It's important that both the employer and employee are fully aware of what the contract entails. This includes the role, hours and payment. In terms of your job description, it is not clear whether the successful candidate would be working 10 or 45 hours, and if they they'd be earning 15k or 35k per year. A confidentiality clause is a clause that states you must not give any private information about your employer's activities.
The Equality Act was put together in 2010 as a broad overview covering many acts that come under it including the Equal Pay Act of 1970, Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. It protects the use of discrimination on grounds of race, gender and age. In your job application form you have stated you wish the applicant to be aged below 30. This conflicts with the Age Discrimination policy of the Equality Act as there is no reason someone above the age of 30 cannot do the role advertised effectively. I recommend you amend this of it could land you in a lot of trouble.
An idea would be to follow the Equal Opportunities legislation that assures employers aim to recruit fairly and that they provide codes of practice that proves this. Under this legislation, employers are responsible for for the well being of their employees and are liable for any physical or emotional harm an employee may suffer under employment.
Being asked to make a documentary on such a sensitive topic of rape, this could easily cause emotional harm. Any applicants would not be protected until employed, and looking at the Health and Safety legislation employees are able to claim compensation from any harm caused where the employer is responsible, which you would be choosing a sensitive topic to work with. Technically, they wouldn't be employees at this stage so would be unable to claim anything, which is unfair when the company is to blame. Trade Unions exist in order to protect rights of employees. In order to gain the benefits you must become a member and pay a yearly membership.
Codes of practice are not affected by the law. They are in place to protect the consumer and have a powerful role in television and film. Policies, procedures and codes of practice that specific to an individual are the responsibility of the employer to provide. These will be unique to the individual and employer, and are a good way to avoid any legal action you may face in the future. Representation is big in the media and this can be problematic. It isn't difficult for the media to manipulate the way something is represented and whatever they feed the audience a strong opinion will be made on it. In terms of the documentary task at hand, you have fallen into the trap of biased representation. An example of this is you have specifically asked for female victims and male offenders to feature. This creates a stereotype that it's always the male at fault and females are not capable of committing rape themselves, which is a false image. Social concerns also arise as it is 'teenagers' being targeted creating a view that teenagers in general are the ones behind rape, further building the negative 'thug' stereotype they already possess, and overshadowing older offenders and victims.
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is a media regulator that sets standards for all British Broadcasting that any media production must meet before it can be released/aired. It exists thanks to the Communications Act and Broadcasting Act that were about setting up a basis for standards that all broadcasting requires in order to be aired. The Ofcom code is made up of multiple sections including Crime, Religion, Privacy and Fairness. Particularly in this case though, 'Protecting the Under-Eighteens' and 'Harm and Offence' are in the forefront.
Protection of the Under-Eighteens is in place to protect those under the age of 18 from any material that may have a negative impact on them.
Your brief states that the documentary will be broadcast "to children at high school" which means they will be no older than 16 at the most. This is an obvious problem as a topic of rape, with re-enactments is pretty explicit and inappropriate for anyone of that age. This means that your brief will be conflicting with the Ofcom regulations of protecting minors.
Secondly, the Harm and Offence section is there to ensure that generally accepted standards are met and applied in order to protect members of the public from harmful or offensive material. Again, this is conflicted with your task for applicants, as rape is a very sensitive and personal subject, many people will find it offensive or harmful, especially parents thinking of their children and the negative impact it could have on them at such a young age. The Obscene Publications Act was put in place in order to determine if material is scene as too explicit depending on the age range of the audience and the time of broadcasting.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is an independent company that classifies films in terms of age depending on what features in the film, such as foul language and nudity for example. In all honesty the video you are asking for would have to have an age certification of 18. This is because the topic is very sensitive in itself, and also using re-enactments will be of an aggressive, violent and sexual nature, which isn't suitable for anyone under that age rating.
The Intellectual Property law is in place so that creators can own their work without the worry of it being stolen. This ranges from things such as a brand, invention, a design or a song. In the modern day, the internet has made it much more difficult to stop unauthorized use and downloading of copyrighted material. Copyrighting something protects it from being used free of charge by everyone and anyone. In the small print of your job letter, you mention a re-compensation of "up to the value of£20 for the production of the video" any applicant enters. This will more than likely give applicants an incentive to commit copyright infringement in order to create as good a video as possible. If it's found out copyrighted music or anything else has been used, and the fact that you have given them encouragement through money, it may well result in a legal dispute.
I hope that after reading this you realize your mistakes and make an effort to fix them. This can be done by withdrawing the letter and redistributing an altered version that abides by the legal and contractual regulations.
Yours sincerely,
Neil Green
The Equality Act was put together in 2010 as a broad overview covering many acts that come under it including the Equal Pay Act of 1970, Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. It protects the use of discrimination on grounds of race, gender and age. In your job application form you have stated you wish the applicant to be aged below 30. This conflicts with the Age Discrimination policy of the Equality Act as there is no reason someone above the age of 30 cannot do the role advertised effectively. I recommend you amend this of it could land you in a lot of trouble.
An idea would be to follow the Equal Opportunities legislation that assures employers aim to recruit fairly and that they provide codes of practice that proves this. Under this legislation, employers are responsible for for the well being of their employees and are liable for any physical or emotional harm an employee may suffer under employment.
Being asked to make a documentary on such a sensitive topic of rape, this could easily cause emotional harm. Any applicants would not be protected until employed, and looking at the Health and Safety legislation employees are able to claim compensation from any harm caused where the employer is responsible, which you would be choosing a sensitive topic to work with. Technically, they wouldn't be employees at this stage so would be unable to claim anything, which is unfair when the company is to blame. Trade Unions exist in order to protect rights of employees. In order to gain the benefits you must become a member and pay a yearly membership.
Codes of practice are not affected by the law. They are in place to protect the consumer and have a powerful role in television and film. Policies, procedures and codes of practice that specific to an individual are the responsibility of the employer to provide. These will be unique to the individual and employer, and are a good way to avoid any legal action you may face in the future. Representation is big in the media and this can be problematic. It isn't difficult for the media to manipulate the way something is represented and whatever they feed the audience a strong opinion will be made on it. In terms of the documentary task at hand, you have fallen into the trap of biased representation. An example of this is you have specifically asked for female victims and male offenders to feature. This creates a stereotype that it's always the male at fault and females are not capable of committing rape themselves, which is a false image. Social concerns also arise as it is 'teenagers' being targeted creating a view that teenagers in general are the ones behind rape, further building the negative 'thug' stereotype they already possess, and overshadowing older offenders and victims.
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is a media regulator that sets standards for all British Broadcasting that any media production must meet before it can be released/aired. It exists thanks to the Communications Act and Broadcasting Act that were about setting up a basis for standards that all broadcasting requires in order to be aired. The Ofcom code is made up of multiple sections including Crime, Religion, Privacy and Fairness. Particularly in this case though, 'Protecting the Under-Eighteens' and 'Harm and Offence' are in the forefront.
Protection of the Under-Eighteens is in place to protect those under the age of 18 from any material that may have a negative impact on them.
Your brief states that the documentary will be broadcast "to children at high school" which means they will be no older than 16 at the most. This is an obvious problem as a topic of rape, with re-enactments is pretty explicit and inappropriate for anyone of that age. This means that your brief will be conflicting with the Ofcom regulations of protecting minors.
Secondly, the Harm and Offence section is there to ensure that generally accepted standards are met and applied in order to protect members of the public from harmful or offensive material. Again, this is conflicted with your task for applicants, as rape is a very sensitive and personal subject, many people will find it offensive or harmful, especially parents thinking of their children and the negative impact it could have on them at such a young age. The Obscene Publications Act was put in place in order to determine if material is scene as too explicit depending on the age range of the audience and the time of broadcasting.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is an independent company that classifies films in terms of age depending on what features in the film, such as foul language and nudity for example. In all honesty the video you are asking for would have to have an age certification of 18. This is because the topic is very sensitive in itself, and also using re-enactments will be of an aggressive, violent and sexual nature, which isn't suitable for anyone under that age rating.
The Intellectual Property law is in place so that creators can own their work without the worry of it being stolen. This ranges from things such as a brand, invention, a design or a song. In the modern day, the internet has made it much more difficult to stop unauthorized use and downloading of copyrighted material. Copyrighting something protects it from being used free of charge by everyone and anyone. In the small print of your job letter, you mention a re-compensation of "up to the value of£20 for the production of the video" any applicant enters. This will more than likely give applicants an incentive to commit copyright infringement in order to create as good a video as possible. If it's found out copyrighted music or anything else has been used, and the fact that you have given them encouragement through money, it may well result in a legal dispute.
I hope that after reading this you realize your mistakes and make an effort to fix them. This can be done by withdrawing the letter and redistributing an altered version that abides by the legal and contractual regulations.
Yours sincerely,
Neil Green
Hi Neil.
ReplyDeleteVery tactful and professional response letter.
Using quotation marks, refer directly from the job description itself.
Extend your conclusion and round-off the letter a little more than this.
Thanks
Josh