This section has been updated to reflect the changes made during the Select Committee phase.
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Occupational Group ● Support Roles ● Exempt Companies ● Workplace Access ● Retaliatory Termination
The game developer occupational group has changed to be both more and less inclusive.
While the nzgamedevrights submission attempted to add more roles to the occupational group, the NZGDA submission took a more future-proof approach of using a production-based definition so that any contractor who works on or contributes to a video game is considered part of the group. This definitely seems like the most pragmatic approach to ensure as many people as possible are covered by the occupational group and that future roles in emerging spaces do not require legislative or regulatory changes to be accounted for in the bill.
At the same time, the language suggested by the NZGDA submission (and subsequently adopted in Select Committee) precludes anyone covered by another group from being in the game developer occupational group. This means that at a minimum writers and composers would be classified under the broader writer and composer occupational groups, even if they only make video games. If you are affected by this change and would prefer to be included in the game developer occupational group instead, please make sure you voice this concern so we can attempt to address it.
Updated during Select Committee
Updated during Select Committee
Support services are only excluded if the work is a “peripheral contribution”
Your survey feedback strongly suggested including community managers and marketing people as game developers. We included that feedback in the nzgamedevrights submission and the select committee agreed to clarify the definition of support services to require that those groups are only excluded if their work was a “peripheral contribution”! While this might mean that contractors in these groups may need to have regulatory declarations or employment court decisions find that their work constitutes more than a peripheral contribution, the definition provides a clear way for community managers and marketing people to be included.
Exemptions for specific types of games has been removed from the bill
Your survey feedback strongly suggested removing the exemption for companies that make educational, training, and advertising games. We included that feedback in the nzgamedevrights submission and the select committee agreed to remove that exemption! Now all video game contractors in the occupational group are covered under the same bill regardless of the type of game they are working on.
Updated during Select Committee
Updated during Select Committee
The bill now clearly precludes companies from unreasonably denying unions access to the workplace
The text of the bill describes an ability for employers to deny union access to the workplace in situations where “sensitive material was being produced”. Our initial reading of the word “sensitive” was “commercially sensitive”, which would have been unreasonably broad and made access unlikely and so we included this concern in the nzgamedevrights submission.
The Select Committee agreed to clarify this section by clearly stating a company cannot restrict access if the concerns could be addressed by “imposing on the representative conditions” which include non-disclosure agreements.
Retaliatory termination protections partially extended
We included in the nzgamedevrights submission a concern about how limited the retaliatory termination protections were and that, in particular, they didn’t even cover other legislation. The select committee agreed to strengthen this provision and it now includes “this Act or any other enactment”!
At the same time, the Select Committee did not expand the retaliatory termination protections to extend to regularly renewing contracts, which comprised a substantial portion of our submission. While it’s unfortunate the Select Committee did not make sufficient changes to this section, we continue to express our strong concerns about this section to the government.
Updated during Select Committee