Today’s judgment from the High Court - which dismissed Equity’s challenge to Spotlight’s fees - is disappointing for our 50,000 members.
Those members will perhaps be most surprised by the finding by the judge, Her Honourable Justice Howells, that Spotlight “does not provide services for the purposes of finding persons employment with employers, or of supplying employers with persons for employment by them.” The common sense understanding of Spotlight’s purpose is to provide services for the purposes of finding persons employment; any actor will tell you that they subscribe to Spotlight to find work.
The judgment states that Spotlight is “a marketing tool to promote the identity and skill set of the performer”, which, if correct, would leave the traditional assertion that they are the ‘home of casting’ in doubt. Casting is our industry’s term for the exchange and supply of labour for performing in productions, and this judgment finds that Spotlight’s role in that is, at best, incidental.
Equally worrying are the implications for working people across the UK, who may now be left unprotected from up front charges by similar platforms elsewhere in the growing gig economy.
Equity has a number of considerations following the ruling. The legal merits of appeal on the basis of the current legislation and regulations are under active consideration by our legal team. We have already made contact with the wider trades union movement and the Labour government today, both of whom were waiting on this judgment to consider their collective response. Equity Council meets next Tuesday, and a further update to members following their deliberations will follow.
We must also put on record our thanks to the claimants in this case, and to all the members who are backing this David versus Goliath campaign. It is incumbent on the union to be brave in challenging abuses of power in the industry where we see it, and this disappointing initial ruling will not deter us from continuing to take the fight to our industry’s gatekeepers.
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It's Game of Thrones and it's not really an argument. This show was a cultural juggernaut, every week the whole internet watched together, it was endlessly quoted, children were named after the characters, and no one brings it up anymore because the last season was so awful.
Just realised that if they had gone ahead with Punk winning the Rumble, him and Gunther could’ve had THAT match at Mania and the cash in wouldn’t have happened.
cody took that hostile crowd on the chin and delivered a classic with cena in the process. he’s not just a babyface he’s THE babyface, THE torch bearer and THE face of the company.
With Cody vs Cena tonight, I really
hope we don’t get a “shock” ending. Just let them go out there and wrestle, have Cena truly pass the torch to Cody was the QB1, and go from there.
Not every wrestling match needs to have these grand twists or big surprises. Look at how much people loved Punk/Gunther.
The wrestling is the draw. Let’s keep it simple.
Take the Cena match out of here but yeah his in ring has held up better than you could hope for imo.
On Collision, Punk had a dangerous and unpredictable vibe which made him a lethal promo, it physically it was looking like we were almost at the end.
Idk when the cliff comes, but between the HIAC match and the Gunther match, he’s still producing seminal career work this late into what he describes as the cherry-on-top part of his run.
Punk vs Gunther was the pinnacle of "all heels are at their core cowards" Gunther's size strength let him dominate the whole match but the second he saw his own blood he freaked out and tried to hide and run like a coward
This mentality is what concerns me. Now that they got the Seth cash in out of the way, the only big shocks I could think of here are a Rhodes heel turn, or a Dwayne pop in, only to disappear again for months.
This is exhausting. Can they just have a great match and call it a night. Can they just have John raise Cody’s hand and cue the pyro. The mentality that they have to do A Thing, and the fans expect A Thing scares me into believing that they’re gonna be rash and pull a trigger that they don’t need to pull, just to shock people and make A Moment™️.
Imagine WWE trying their hardest since 2015 to make another over top babyface who is The Guy™️ from week to week, only to turn him Heel against The Guy™️ they’ve been trying to replace the entire decade