A new report looking at how parents and carers are treated in the TV industry says they are being discriminated against by “unlawful, invisible and unfair” employment practises.
The report, Raising Our Game, is from Raising Films and is the result of six months research, with evidence gathered from workers, employers, leaders and academics. The BFI supported the research with National Lottery funding.
It found that the UK TV and film industries suffer from a “precarious and exploitative culture” because off “casualised labour practices, deregulation, deunionisation and persistent ignorance of the wider legislative employment framework within the UK”.
It says this has led to parents and carers not being given the employments rights available to them and they are not offered a system for raising concerns.
The report says that many employers in the sector, large and small, do not understand or follow employment law, with a “long hours’ culture” on production acting as a barrier to parents with children of all ages, and to all carers.
The research also warned that training, education and support schemes have not been effective in tackling many diversity issues in the film and TV industry.
It also says that terms like “under-represention” used in the industry are too vague and allows “actual discrimination” to operate unnoticed.
The full report can be read at Raising Film’s website.
