At press time, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) had begun a push to help the industry meet minimum thresholds so that the Producers’ Health Benefits Plan (PHBP), health care coverage underwritten by United Healthcare (parent to such brands as PacifiCare and Oxford), can take effect early next year for eligible freelance production employees. Employer contributions to the plan are slated to begin on Oct. 1 with the goal of coverage kicking in effective Feb. 1, 2008, for qualifying employees provided they meet the required number of work days.
For the PHBP to get off the ground, the lion’s share of AICP member companies need to enroll and a minimum of about 1,000 freelancers must be benefits-eligible. Qualifying freelance employees must be working in a production capacity with job titles of producer or line producer, production supervisor, assistant production supervisor or production assistant, and need to be employees not covered by a union plan.
While the AICP provided impetus for the PHBP–committing time and resources to clear administrative and governmental hurdles over the past 10-plus years–the coverage will be provided by a California-based trust that is entirely separate from the AICP itself. There will be a professional third party administrator, Administrative Services Only, Inc. (ASO), available for customer service for both employers and employees, and which will track all contributions, handle record keeping and see that the plan is in compliance with the law. ASO is an experienced third party administrator in the commercial production business.
Employers will pay nine percent on gross earnings of qualifying production employees. The AICP estimates that the coverage will increase the overall pension and welfare (P&W) rate that production companies currently bid by only one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half percent. The AICP suggests that when bidding for work that will shoot after Oct. 1, producers take this into consideration when computing the P&W rate.
There will be no cost to a qualifying employee for coverage, except if they elect to cover their dependents, which will be billable directly to the employee.
Per the PHBP, employees must have worked at least 30 days per quarter for a full year in order to qualify for the health care benefits. After initial qualification, all days in excess of 30 in a quarter will be “banked.” Banked days can be used to make up for shortfalls in another quarter or quarters. The bank can hold up to 90 days and all banked days must be used within three quarters of the quarter in which they were earned.
Enrollment for employers and employees opens on Aug. 15. The enrollment deadline for employers is Sept. 15. If they do not enroll by this date, they will not be able to do so until a later date in ’08, meaning that their eligible employees will not gain qualifying credits during that interim span when working for a company. Late enrollment will also carry a monetary penalty.
Employees must enroll and have their data in by Sept. 30. The next effective enrollment period will not be until sometime in ’08, and coverage will lag behind that enrollment. When an employee enrolls, he or she authorizes the ASO to receive his or her employment data from payroll companies going back to the second quarter of 2006 (to meet the eligibility requirement of 30 days per quarter for a full year) as well as the release of info to United Healthcare.
The PHBP currently has much of the nation covered with AICP looking to help add other states to the mix. As the plan stood at press time, all days worked will be credited (provided contributions are received by the PHBP)–except for when an employee works for an employer NOT headquartered in Arizona, California, New York, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland or Virginia. In a case where a company is headquartered in one of the other 40 states, only work for that company which takes place outside the state where the company is headquartered will be credited. (For example, an employee working for an Oregon company on a shoot in Oregon would not be credited; however, if the work were done in any state other than Oregon, that employment would be credited.)
CoProS
The PHBP is relevant to what has been a contentious issue on the labor front. Indeed obtaining viable health insurance has been a stated priority for CoProS, a group of commercial line producers, production supervisors and assistant production supervisors formed in 2004. Last year the group staged an informational picket line at the AICP Show tour event in Los Angeles. There they circulated flyers noting that 25 percent of working assistant production supervisors in Los Angeles have no health insurance. Furthermore picketers urged the AICP to recognize the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) as CoProS’ collective bargaining representative. The OPEIU, part of the AFL-CIO, represents managerial, administrative and clerical employees.
The AICP has stood steadfast in not recognizing OPEIU, which picketed several spot shoots in Los Angeles toward the end of ’06, with disruptive behavior reported by a couple of eyewitnesses (SHOOT, 12/22/06). OPEIU and CoProS have since tried to organize the assistant production supervisors at individual production houses. While organizing efforts didn’t pan out at one company, a secret ballot election of assistant production supervisors at The Directors Bureau, Hollywood, to determine if they would favor union representation is slated to take place via mail, with ballots to be counted in September. Word is that the CoProS will continue filings with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to gain elections at other commercial production houses. AICP has asked its members to contact it for assistance and info should they receive notice from the NLRB.
Miller said the health care plan AICP has helped bring to the cusp of fruition “does not represent an attempt to placate CoProS….We’ve been involved in this for more than 10 years, long before CoProS existed. We have invested time and money into getting this coverage because we felt it was important.” As chronicled in SHOOT over the years, those efforts have included putting legal counsel on the job, and gaining necessary clearances for the proposed health plan from the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor. The intent was also to establish coverage not only for freelancers but for AICP member company nonunion staffers. The AICP still hopes to address the health insurance need for the latter category of workers, said Miller, but the first step had to be on the freelance front given the legal and logistical complexities involved in also gaining needed official recognition for the necessary aggregate of nonunion staff people right out of the gate.
SHOOT sought comment on the new health insurance plan from representatives of CoProS and the OPEIU who had not returned phone calls at press time. The AICP said that it asked late last year–but to no avail–for CoProS’ cooperation in gathering data to help accelerate the timetable for the implementation of the insurance coverage. An AICP memo sent to AICP members noted that CoProS is acting “as if they don’t want our health plan to happen or they can’t accept that it will happen–well it is happening, it will provide benefits for freelance production employees including those in CoProS–and while more difficult, we have achieved this goal without their involvement or help.”
The AICP has held meetings with its East and West Coast chapter boards to update them on the health insurance plan. East Coast membership was also briefed with a similar West Coast chapter session slated for next week. And a website for the Producers’ Health Benefits Plan–http://www.phbp.org/–has been set up for workers as well. They can log onto that site, enter their email address and some general information (no personal data or identification is necessary) in order to be kept informed about the health insurance via email. Site visitors will also be able to access the enrollment form and other info.
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