To whom it may concern,
I have pointed out some contractual, legal and ethical issues with your job application/advertisement for the 'Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer'. Many of these issues are shown through the religious views and age discrimination which can be seen on the advertisement. For example the person going for this job is expected to agree and/or believe in Christian views. The hours and salary have a very large gap in which you will be expected to be payed or how many hours you work, for example the hours in which you will work are shown as 10-45 hours per week, and the salary is shown as £15,000-£35000 per year, The salary for this job presents pay equality as you're showing that the individuals salary depends on how many hours worked and the age of the applicant.
The job role also includes and exclusivity clause, the application states "Please note that if successful, you must not apply for other positions of this nature." this shows that the successful applicant cannot work for anyone but the original employer (Flipside Media), although this application does not include a confidentiality clause which isn't necessarily needed but will help your company from having an secrets exposed.
The job role also includes and exclusivity clause, the application states "Please note that if successful, you must not apply for other positions of this nature." this shows that the successful applicant cannot work for anyone but the original employer (Flipside Media), although this application does not include a confidentiality clause which isn't necessarily needed but will help your company from having an secrets exposed.
A further look into the description of the job reveals that there is further problems, for example the Equality act is broken when the description is asking for male/females aged below 30, this is known as age discrimination because no one older than 30 can apply for this job. A famous example of this happening in television would be BBC Country-file presenter Miriam O'Reilly, was awarded 150k after being sacked for being 'too old'. Certain jobs can have an age limit if a sufficient reason has been given but in your case it has not.
This job brief does not state where anyone over the age of 30 is unable to write proposals, manage budgets (plus anything else this job entails). The Equality Act generally covers legislation to protect age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity. It was brought in to cover a larger area of equality instead of having different laws for different types.
Another area in which your advertisement has breached the equality act is within the religious views section, your advertisement states that the person going forward for this job must 'promote the ideals of the Christian faith and try to encourage young people to contact us for further help and guidance', this is imposing that the applicants without Christian views would be treated worse than Christians, this is known as discreet discrimination, it is also showing that you aren't giving applicants a fair chance at being hired, this goes against the codes of practice. This also involves The Equal Opportunity Act where discrimination, sexual harassment and victimization is encouraged to be identified, and equality is promoted.
The employers at Flipside Media have liability for the applicant. The employers will be held accountable for anything that happens to the employee/applicants during the job for the Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer. In this job application brief the employee is told that if they want to apply for this position then they are to "plan and produce a short documentary". If there any legal issues within this video then they will not be held responsible to the employer. Due to the fact that the applicant is not yet working for Flipside Media, the individual is also not protected by employee rights. This could be due to the copyright in the part of the brief where the applicant is requested to use "a popular music soundtrack", but the applicant will only "be recompensed up to the value of £20 for the production of the video." where copyright is encouraged, the intellectual property law would be seen in this area for breaking copyrighted or patented material. Employee rights are the rights within your contract, like if the applicant is successful, the employee "must not apply for other positions". Although, the employee still has rights by law and they can in fact apply for other jobs, but this puts their current job at risk. This is where trade unions come in. Trade union protect the rights and interests of workers.
This job brief does not state where anyone over the age of 30 is unable to write proposals, manage budgets (plus anything else this job entails). The Equality Act generally covers legislation to protect age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity. It was brought in to cover a larger area of equality instead of having different laws for different types.
Another area in which your advertisement has breached the equality act is within the religious views section, your advertisement states that the person going forward for this job must 'promote the ideals of the Christian faith and try to encourage young people to contact us for further help and guidance', this is imposing that the applicants without Christian views would be treated worse than Christians, this is known as discreet discrimination, it is also showing that you aren't giving applicants a fair chance at being hired, this goes against the codes of practice. This also involves The Equal Opportunity Act where discrimination, sexual harassment and victimization is encouraged to be identified, and equality is promoted.
The employers at Flipside Media have liability for the applicant. The employers will be held accountable for anything that happens to the employee/applicants during the job for the Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer. In this job application brief the employee is told that if they want to apply for this position then they are to "plan and produce a short documentary". If there any legal issues within this video then they will not be held responsible to the employer. Due to the fact that the applicant is not yet working for Flipside Media, the individual is also not protected by employee rights. This could be due to the copyright in the part of the brief where the applicant is requested to use "a popular music soundtrack", but the applicant will only "be recompensed up to the value of £20 for the production of the video." where copyright is encouraged, the intellectual property law would be seen in this area for breaking copyrighted or patented material. Employee rights are the rights within your contract, like if the applicant is successful, the employee "must not apply for other positions". Although, the employee still has rights by law and they can in fact apply for other jobs, but this puts their current job at risk. This is where trade unions come in. Trade union protect the rights and interests of workers.
Codes of practice give expected standards and guidelines to other professions on their roles, rights and responsibilities, an example of this is The Equality Act. To avoid any legal issues within this job advertisement, you should then present the applicants with a health and safety instructions. Also, this is similar to policies and procedures, these protect companies and make sure that there is dependability and also having the advantage against employees which could face legal actions.
Policies are very detailed and straight to the point, they usually identify the aim, development, application, and consequences of the policy. This is necessary within your advertisement in response to "you should promote the ideals of the Christian faith..", which again limits this job role to only those which are Christian.
The job application also suggests certain representation of both males and females, this is shown when you put "You should interview teenagers and other individuals who might be/have been affected by the topic, including female victims and male offenders..". This suggests that males are always the offenders, and females are always a victims when rape occurs, although this is not the case and both genders can be the victim or the offender. The brief also suggests to use "re-enactments" and "dramatizations", these could be seen as disturbing and inappropriate considering you are showing it to a child can be seen as obscene due to the the interviews involving individuals which "have been affected by the topic". This also presents the Ofcom Protecting Under-Eighteens code where violent or dangerous behaviour "must not be featured in programmes made primarily for children..", whereas this documentary is going to be shown to children at High-school who are all under eighteen. The Obscene Publications Act (1959) regulates what gets published according to its obscenity, a documentary about rape may be hard to pass especially as it will be shown to children and have dramatisations and re-enactments. According to the BBFC or British Board of Film Classification your documentary would be rated as an 18 or higher (18r) due to the fact that it would include strong sexual scenes, and strong sexual violence if rape is involved within the dramatisations or re-enactments, strong language may also be involved if sexual activity would be related to certain slang words with are explicit and used in a violent way etc..
I hope that you take these points into consideration,
Your Sincerely,
Bruce Mann-McClernon
Bruce,
ReplyDeleteYou have made a really good start on this post and you have achieved a merit for this as it is as you have covered the necessary legal and ethical issues and backed-your points.
In order to aim for a distinction you would need to explain the law and regulatory guidelines in more detail and quote more directly from these sources. You would also need to add a reference list and use quotation marks around any law/code that you have found/used.
Great job,
EllieB