Audio-Visual Workers

In one line

Nobody may be employed on an audio-visual production without a written agreement, registered by the producer with a competent authority, containing seven listed matters and a dispute mechanism that leads to the Industrial Tribunal.

In exam wording: section 66 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 prohibits the employment of a person as an audio-visual worker unless a written agreement is entered into with him by the producer, or by the producer with the contractor, or by the contractor or other person through whom he is employed, and unless that agreement is registered by the producer with the competent authority notified by the appropriate Government; requires the agreement to be in the prescribed form and, where the worker is employed through a contractor, to contain a specific condition making the producer liable on the contractor's default with a right of reimbursement; requires a copy to be forwarded to the prescribed provident fund authority where the worker is covered; and, notwithstanding Chapters V, VI and VII, requires the agreement to cover seven listed matters including a dispute resolution mechanism, failing which either party may invoke the jurisdiction of the Industrial Tribunal under section 7A of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947.

Why the law has this at all

Film and television work is casual, project based and almost entirely undocumented. A dancer engaged for eleven days, a dubbing artist paid per reel, a stunt performer hired through a coordinator who is himself hired through a line producer: none of them has a letter of appointment, and when the payment does not come there is nothing to show what was agreed.

The Code's answer is not a body of substantive rights for this trade. It is a document. Section 66 makes the written, registered agreement the condition of lawful employment, then loads that agreement with the contents the Code wants: wages, hours, safety, welfare, provident fund and a way of resolving disputes. The substantive protection is written into the private contract, and the statute makes the contract compulsory.

That design has a consequence a student should notice. Where the general Chapters of the Code fix standards directly, here section 66(4) opens with a non obstante over Chapters V, VI and VII, that is over health and working conditions, welfare, and hours of work and annual leave. For this trade those matters are settled in the agreement.

And the definitions are where the modernisation happened. The Act this replaces was passed in 1981, when the trade meant feature films and cinema theatres. Section 2(1)(e) defines audio-visual production to include animation, cartoon depiction, audio-visual advertisement, digital production, and feature films, non-feature films, television, web-based serials, talk shows, reality shows and sport shows. Section 2(1)(f) defines an audio-visual worker to include an anchor, news reader, dubbing artist and stunt person as well as an actor, musician, singer and dancer. A reality show contestant's crew and a web series unit are inside the Part.