Tech Week Bumps II

[Sarah]

I work for a theatre that is part of a university, hence, I am on a biweekly pay schedule as per a contractual rider. Most university payroll systems are notoriously difficult to alter, and the biweekly schedule is at least preferable to the faculty monthly paydate. For this past season, I negotiated my tech week bumps into my salary, so it made my weekly pay a bit higher, as opposed to getting one check at the end of the season for that extra cash. I sort of missed having that extra cash; I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were concerning how you prefer to receive your tech week bumps, if you have options, and if your payroll system hinders or helps you to negotiate for future seasons?

[loebtmc]

fwiw, in my experience AEA is actually quite reasonable when dealing w a pre-existing payroll system like a university and will usually allow concessions on that, as long as things like OT and tech week bumps are dealt with properly monetarily (if not time-wise) - I have been told ahead of time when those situations existed and the company has always given either advances or personal check cashing to get through the week where necessary

[Sarah]

scoot, it's a LORT D contract. Indeed; AEA understands the restraints of a university payroll system, hence the rider for the biweekly pay. It's not been a problem; sometimes it actually helps me to save more money. (Ha!) I'm just wondering if it actually evens out, tax wise, if one is paid biweekly as opposed to weekly. Those vacation, OT and tech week bump checks seem to get whacked with taxes. There should be a chart (paperwork!!) that outlines this sort of thing...for example: if you get paid $X and you claim X and you are paid on a biweekly schedule, then you can expect to net $X, whereas if you're paid weekly in the same scenario, you can expect to net $X. I hate money.

[MatthewShiner]

http://www.paycheckcity.com/netpaycalc/netpaycalculator.asp

Paycheck calculator you can play around with.

One theatre I worked at gave the tech week bump up the week of pre-production - which was nice since you were setting up house, etc, etc, etc.

[Sarah]

Matthew, thanks for the calculator link. That's great.

Hmm...tech week bumps during pre-pro week...that's an interesting idea. I wonder if it may be negotiable as to when you could receive your bumps. For example...we are not offered parking spaces, and parking is a nightmare here on campus. Public transportation is free, but the buses don't generally run when you really need them. It's great for "just rehearsal" days, but when you're in rehearsal and calling a show, it's almost impractical. I wonder if it's possible to negotiate the tech week bumps at the start of the season to pay for a parking permit? I'd much rather spend that money on something frivolous, but having to walk half a mile to your car or wait 45 minutes for the last bus after a show is a bummer.

scoot, that's what I've always thought, but I think it evens out when I do my tax return.

[malewen]

Generally Equity is pretty good about working with university pay systems that pay their regular employees every other week.  In other situations, I'm not sure how flexible they would be on changing what week you get paid the bump but you can always ask your AEA business rep the question.

As for the tax implications, it might actually be an advantage to get the bump prorated over a number of weeks as it could prevent you from moving up into a higher income tax rate for that pay period.

There's no reason that you can't negotiate to get more than the standard amount for the tech week bump (except perhaps the basically poor economic condition of many regional theatres).  It might be an advantage to them to find a way to give you something extra that really doesn't cost them a lot (in the big picture) since it only applies to a small number of people on an individual production (and for only one week as well).  However, don't be disappointed if the theatre says no.

[Sarah]

Thanks for all the input, folks.