Overtime

[J]

I'm assisting on a show right now and am disagreeing with my stage manager on the issue of overtime. We are working under the LORT contract.

The basic idea is that I have understood overtime to be charged "per rule" and she believes that that is considered "double-dipping".  So in other words, if we break 2 rules in 1 hour, we get 2 hours worth of overtime.  I've done this myself on past contracts and seen it done when I ASMed on other contracts as well.  She is under the impression that even if 3 rules are broken in 1 hour, you'd still only get the 1 hour of overtime.

This came up recently when we went over on the weekly AND daily hours alloted on a Sunday evening.  A call to the rep, and then from there to the National Committee came back saying that we should charge for both.  (that day we went over by 1 hour, but had gone over on the week by 5 hours)

It has now come up because we are open and we will be going back in to rehearsal during the run.  An outside producer has picked up the show and we will be making script revisions during this rehearsal. This alone requires double overtime for any rehearsal hours because it is work outside of our contract. On top of this, the show is 4 hours long, which only allows us 4 hours of rehearsal during the afternoon hours.

We have scheduled 5 hours on these days, and I believe that we are then due for the double overtime (for the work outside of our contract) and an additional hour of overtime for working longer than the allotted hours.

Anyone have any experience with this type of issue?  I know I can call my rep, but I'd rather get some feedback here before it goes that far.

[MatthewShiner]

I have always been told my rep that although specific things are over time, time and half, or double overtime, the hour is billed only as one unit - but on the higher rate.

That is, if you went over time on one day by an hour, you will bill for that hour, but then the time, since already paid as overtime, will not be billed because it put your over the weekly hours.

You can, for example, never go over on the per day, but end up going over for the week, and then you bill for the times over the week.

Since you have to get overtime approved before it's scheduled, what are your producers saying?  I think you should talk to the rep, as this is very specific issue.  I think Stage Management and the producers should discuss, and make sure possibly the deputy and Biz rep should be all be included on the conversation.

Also, how you choose to bill overtime is also a personal choice for yourself, although you should bill correctly for the actors.

[J]

Very interesting. We just heard back recently from our rep and from the national committee that if you go over on weekly and daily that you bill for both. 

So overall, Matthew, your understanding is that you do not bill more than once for a specific hour, but only 1 unit per hour, no matter how many rules are violated, correct?

[MatthewShiner]

Which region are you?  It would be interesting to note.

I have worked out both east and west coast, and often have gotten different verbal rulings on various issues, and sometimes the same issue getting two answers at two different times.

 If you received a verbal ruling it may have been given to you and your specific situation, and may not apply to ALL situations.

But yes, I have been told my business rep that that once the hour is paid at the higher rate, it is out of play.  But that was for my specific situation.  (In all my cases, it was issues of either going over the day and, thus, eventually going over for the week - never for a meal penalty, or something like that)

I mean, what can you charge for overtime for .  . .

1.) Over for a day
2.) Over for the week
3.) over 12-hour span
4.) violating 12-hour turn around
5.) excessive costume fittings
6.) excessive photo calls
7.) violating daylight day of rest
8.) violating day off
9.) Meal break penalty
10.) Regular Break penalty
11.) violating 12-hour notice
12.) meetings for stage management (outside of tech week) - that are outside of work week hours.
13.) going over work week hours (but not rehearsal hours)


I know I am forgetting some situations - we should add to this list.

To be honest, I don't know the rate for all these - the one I most deal with is excessive costume fittings outside of the 4 hours allowed or violating daylight day of rest.

But again, I have always billed on hour of overtime once, but I have not called AEA on this in about three years, so maybe they have changed their policy on it.

Next time it comes up, I will have to call my rep.

[J]

Central Region.

Well, for fun, maybe I should go through with a search/find in the book and list all the instances in which it states overtime shall be paid....hmm. A nice side project!

[VSM]

That would be great info to share...

[MatthewShiner]

I was on the phone with my biz rep about about another issue (If fight call can be 30 minutes long - the answer is yes by the way) - and some other things, and brought up this question.

He back-up'ed my origional thought that an hour is billed once at the highest rate it can be billed for, and then those hours are out of play.  That if you go overtime one hour on Tuesday, that makes you go one hour over for the week - you either bill it as overtime for the day or the week, but not both - because once it is billed, it is considered paid, and thus out of play.

Now, re-reading the origional post, I think it's such an unique and a particular situation that the biz rep may have made a specific decision for that situation.

Which brings us back to checking with the biz rep if you have any questions.

[VSM]

Every single time.
Just to C-Y-A...

[hbelden]

(If fight call can be 30 minutes long - the answer is yes by the way)

Always call your business rep.  I think (I could very well be wrong on this) that in the Western Region, fight calls over 15 minutes come out of rehearsal time.

If someone knows better than me on this, please let me know.

[MatthewShiner]

This is where the "vagueness" of the rule could be read either way

(C) All Actors who participate in a fight shall run through the routine during the 15 minutes prior to half-hour.  Any exception to this rule shall be at the express discretion of the Fight Captain.  Such run-throughs are permitted to impinge upon the regular breaks and/or hours.

I think most of would read that the "exception" would be if the fight captain feels that they don't need to do the fight call; like on a second show of a two show day.  But, my business rep said, it can go the other way - if the Fight Captain feels like an extended fight call is needed for safety  reasons, then it can be elongated.  I did ask specifically if I to deduct this from the rehearsal hours, and was told no.

 I was told that the request to lengthen it had to come from the Fight Captain (not the producers, not stage management), so I think perhaps this issue came up on occasion before.  But, again, if the issue came up again, I would check with the business rep.  But again, lengthening the fight call by request of the fight captain to 30 minutes does pass the rule. 

I think if there ever was a request for an hour fight call . . . we might get in trouble.

[nmno]

(If fight call can be 30 minutes long - the answer is yes by the way)

Always call your business rep.  I think (I could very well be wrong on this) that in the Western Region, fight calls over 15 minutes come out of rehearsal time.

If someone knows better than me on this, please let me know.

Getting off topic here but...
I ran into this issue several years ago, so the "ruling" on it may have changed but yes, we were told by the SF Business Rep that anything over 15 minutes before 1/2 hour would have to be taken out of rehearsal hours (we had quite a few fights in our show, a fight calls that required full company and seemed like using every prop in the show.)  It ended up being ok, we shuffled hours but that was their ruling at the time.  (I wasn't the AEA SM on it.)  But then again, this was the answer provided by the SF Rep; perhaps inquiring with LA would have yielded a different answer.

[MatthewShiner]

which of course leads to the question - it's a national union, why can't we get the same answers across the nation?

[hbelden]

which of course leads to the question - it's a national union, why can't we get the same answers across the nation?

Really, exactly my point.  I'm applying to be on some AEA committees and would like to bring this up at the appropriate time.  Maybe business reps should check with the contract committees for rule interpretations - there is only one committee for each contract, right? But I think that would take far too long.  Maybe we should just be better about building "case law" and "setting precedents" for lack of a better term.

Or, more likely, I'm just completely out to sea about how the union operates.

[MatthewShiner]

Even better . . . I just had a situation where two different SM's called the SAME business rep (I called six months ago, he call yesterday) and got two separate answers about the overtime rate for rehearsing on a DDR.

SOOOOOO FRUSTRATING.

[KMC]

I have no idea how Equity works (or maybe in this case doesn't work), but isn't it possible for them to have some kind of knowledge base in place on their end?  At least that way they could provide consistent answers when you call.  Most equity issues that come up here get a quick response from members, which leads me to believe that the questions that come up here are asked by a good number of SMs to the various reps.