SAG-AFTRA, the Music Artists Coalition and the Black Music Action Coalition have submitted joint public comments to the Federal Trade Commission asserting that certain contract and employment terms imposed by recording companies, entertainment employers and news outlets harm fair competition and restrict workers from building their careers.
The Federal Trade Commission invited public comments on contract terms that may be harmful to fair competition, and are seeking terms that may create power asymmetries that disadvantage workers. Workers from across the entertainment industry have joined together to submit these comments. SAG-AFTRA and its allies continue their advocacy for California’s Free Artists from Industry Restrictions Act — known as the FAIR Act — which would outlaw many of the practices highlighted in the FTC submission.
“Entertainment and broadcast employers take advantage of workers every single day,” said SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “It is time to put an end to one-sided contract terms that restrict job opportunities, earnings and worker mobility. We won’t stand for unfair treatment, and we will always fight to ensure entertainment and broadcast workers get a fair shake. That’s why we are filing these comments and working to pass legislation like the FAIR Act in California.”
The FAIR Act will modernize the law to reflect how film, television, and music are made and distributed today, limiting the length of time that production studios and record labels are able to unilaterally hold actors and recording artists off the market. The legislation also critically extends to recording artists the Seven Year Statute, which prohibits employers from trapping workers in long-term contracts. The rise of new platforms and distribution models has afforded consumers more choices than ever to access the content they want. Yet the artists who bring joy to consumers remain constrained to burdensome and archaic contracts. Production studios and record labels rouy hold artists off the market, unpaid, for extended periods of time using contractual restrictions that originated before the 1960s.
Two boilerplate clauses in television and recording contracts — options and exclusivity — keep artists from pursuing those opportunities and allow producers and studios to keep performers off the market, uncompensated, for prolonged periods. Additionally, record labels hold recording artists to long-term contracts from which they cannot escape thanks to a 1987 loophole in the Seven Year Statute, a labor law which, rightly, prohibits almost every California employer from signing individuals to contracts longer than seven years.
Recording artists and actors are not the only workers who suffer from burdensome contracts. Television and radio broadcasters navigate boilerplate non-compete clauses in their employment agreements that were formerly only reserved for highly compensated and high-profile broadcasters. These clauses similarly restrict these broadcasters from pursuing the opportunities they want, resulting in wage and salary stagnation. These low salaries drive talent away from the industry or frequently force workers to move away from their families to lower-cost housing markets. SAG-AFTRA has proposed limitations on these agreements through collective bargaining, however, employers continue to resist any limitations on these agreements.
This item originally featured in the SAG-AFTRA magazine fall/winter 2021 issue.