Job Letter

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter to address the job of Apprentice Digital Video Producer which you have been advertising.  I was going to apply for the job but your advert is so offensive and breaks so many laws and regulations that instead I am writing to you to complain about it, and might also complain to the police.  

Firstly you have broken the law against the Discrimination act. This act states that both employees and employers can not be discriminated against.This means that people are unable to be treated differently due to personal relationships or discrimination's such as; Race, Gender, Age, Ethnicity, Financial Status, etc. This is also in direct violation of The equality act. This act enforces the right to everyone being given the same opportunities and no one has perks or privileges over the rest of the employees with the same job role. You have broken this law by specifically asking for the people applying for this job to be under the age of 30. This is discriminating against age and is in violation of two acts. The discrimination and equality acts.

By putting in the specifications that you would like this to be shown to high school children, this is instantly contradicting the fact you would like to use re-enactments and dramatizations as anything showing this type of violent nature and graphic content, even if shown briefly or censored would still result in a rating of a 15. This rating is given by the BBFC(British Board of Film Classification). This is a board of people who decide based on the content in the production, what rating it should be given. This would mean only a small amount of high school students would be able to watch this documentary. Also, this is in direct violation of the obscene publications act which prevents any production from having inappropriate material in productions which may be seen as deviant or obscene. In the specifications it also says that you would like a popular soundtrack in the documentary. This is a smart idea as it will gain attention to the documentary almost instantly as it will be a popular song however, it has not been thought through properly as it will be in violation of the copyright act. This means that if you choose to use the documentary you are at risk of being taken to court and being sued for this production. If you use a song which you don't own the rights to, they have the right to alter this song in your production however they wish and may even take all profits made from it. You will have to contact the owner of the song in which you would wish to use to ask for rights and permissions to the song. However all of this may not apply if it is a creative commons license. This is a licence which means that if the artist is credited for their work and song that is used, you may be allowed to use the song.

 An employer must present the employee with some form of legal contract to protect both the employee and employer by law. A contract is a document which will contain many legislation, laws and conditions which the employer will have to agree to and sign in order to legally bind the contract. If the employee does not sign the contract, the employer will most likely not hire the employee to work for them however, there are some circumstances in which the employer may hire the employee. This will often be in jobs which are less professional or jobs which may not be as serious. If an employer or another person decides to sign the contract for someone else pretending to be the employee this can be considered as fraud and may lead to the person who signed the document being prosecuted. Contracts will often contain many of the same legislation such as the discrimination laws and even in some jobs, confidentiality clauses. A confidentiality clause is a law which when agreed to means that the employee is not allowed to discuss their job details with other people. This may be a part of the contract for certain jobs which may contain information that is either personal or private. This can be jobs such as; Care workers, Councillors, Doctors or jobs in the film production industry where films may be kept confidential until their publishing or public release. Films in production can often be leaked by people who are breaking the contract (Confidentiality clause) anonymously. 

Parts of the legislation such as the equality act are almost in every contract which an employer may offer to you. The equality act is an act in which states that everyone in the work place must be treated equally however they are.  This can relate to the discrimination act which protects people from being discriminated against. Employers are in most jobs, likely to be responsible for the employees well being and are liable if anything is to happen to them. This law also extends to anything that they may do whilst representing the company. If a builder for a company builds a house incorrectly and it is unstable and falls down, the company is liable for his actions due to the contract which is signed by both the employer and employee. The employer is liable for anything which the employee does during employment which is why jobs will often have interviews and trials, this is because it is important that they hire someone who will not mess up and leave them liable. Employees have many rights when being hired by an employer, most important of all is the minimum wage. It is illegal for employers to pay employees less than minimum wage for their age range and can lead to prosecutions and policy negligence. It is essential that you must receive a pay slip which provides a detailed breakdown of your pay per hour and hours you have worked, including any deductions which may have been taken from the pay. It is perfectly valid for the employers to deduct wages for good reason however, if it is deducted without validity, this becomes illegal. These rights are only valid whilst the employment is active, if the employment is terminated, so are the employee rights and the employer is no longer liable for the employees actions. Trade Unions are a group of workers which are of the same profession/interests which come together to form a larger group which furthers their rights and interests. However, a trade union may not protect you as an employee for this starting job task as you are not yet employed by the company. This means you will not yet have your employee rights and cannot be protected by the union.

Codes of practice are not legal requirements and are not needed to do however, they are often guidelines which will help or benefit the company, sometimes even may help you to avoid legal issues. Policies and procedures are rules which are made by the companies which could be handed to the employee to avoid having legal issues and could act as guidelines to make sure that everything is done properly and legally. Representation throughout this documentary which you are asking to be made about rape may be an issue. For the actors that may be participating in this, such as the rapists who have sexually assaulted people, they will be viewed as horrible people as this documentary will be against their views and not impartial. This may mean that a lot of people in this position may not wish to be interviewed. Alongside this, the people that may have been victims will be represented as helpless and weak. This issue is also solely targeting women which are the victims which suggests that men cannot be the victims. Men are also as likely to be victimized as women which can give a biased view and creates a sexist agenda. This may give the young impressionable young adults of today a very sexist view which may be important to them and may stick to them throughout their life. This would go against the equality act as men are seen as the predators in this documentary and women are not. Also, the re-enactments which have been requested are not possible to an extent as they would also go against the obscene publications act 1959 which prevents obscene acts and behavior such as rape from being broadcast or published. There are stereotypes for every individual and group of there and the media portrays them through these stereotypes. The media will often show groups of teenagers to be rebellious and mischievous where as this is not the case, not all teenagers are this way. This is a perfect example of how the media may seem impartial but creates a view/opinion on subjects. Through the documentary which you have asked for in the description, your view focuses on the victimization of young women, whereas there are many points of view that could've been taken such as what lead these people to do what they did and how people see what they did. This video that would be produced would also have to be in the view of the Christians beliefs whereas the off com broadcasting rules say that videos must be impartial to be shown on air to viewers when it is not impartial and will be very heavily in favor of Christians. 

Offcom are the people who regulate what is shown on the air and have created a set of guidelines to abide by in order to be eligible for submitting any form of produced video to be shown on air. Offcom have recently updated this set of guidelines for persons under the age of 18. The first of which being that the broadcaster must judge what is appropriate in each case for the actors to be participating in. This new change also says that a child's vulnerability and resilience may vary due to their factors and past experiences so this should be taken into consideration. This may be an issue, asking an actor under the age of 18 to act as a victim in this production if they may have had a past experience with sexual assault. However, this should not be an issue as long as a background check is carried out as is stated in the guidelines also. As this production is based around rape, the minimum rating that this would be given would be a 12A due to its graphic nature and inappropriate topic. This may stand as an issue if this is wanting to be shown to children under this age rating. Also, this may be an issue as some parents/guardians may not be wanting to let their child view this graphic nature. This being a fairly high age rating for the audience which the company is wanting to show this to may be an issue as people under this age will be unable to view this video and also, if the teacher is not around, some people in the class may be unable to view this type of material due to their age. For this production, you have also asked for a "popular music soundtrack" to be played in the video. This is in direct violation of the copyright protection act and may also be seen as a violation of the intellectual property law. This may be an issue as the owner of this song may not grant rights for you to use this song. To first appeal for a right to this song, you must ask for the owners permission. This will often be through contacting the artists manager or using a creative commons licence which allows you to use thier soundtrack as long as they are credited however, this license may vary based upon the artist and their opinions on the situation.