Freelance confirmation

BECTU has issued a standard confirmation of booking letter for freelances.

Freelance film and television workers are often engaged on verbal contracts leaving them open to abuse by unscrupulous employers.

In these circumstances BECTU advises its freelance members to protect themselves by issuing their own paperwork, and it has prepared a standard confirmation of booking letter which members can adapt for their own use.

In the interests of good practice and fair dealing across the film and television industry, the pro forma confirmation of booking letter is now available for all freelances to use, whether or not they are BECTU members.

The letter provides freelances with various options for a confirmation of booking letter.

BECTU strongly advises film and television freelances to send a confirmation of booking letter to an employer where they know or suspect that they will not provide a written contract.

It may also be a good idea to send it even if employers are going to send a written contract, because it summarises the freelances understanding of the terms and conditions of the job that they are about to undertake.

In the event of a dispute later on, it will be a useful point of reference: for instance, where the employer tries to reduce the agreed rate of pay by claiming that it "includes holiday pay".

Where possible, send the letter to the employer by fax and keep the fax report slip, so that in the event of a dispute, there will be evidence that it was sent and received.

The letter can be downloaded in the following formats:

Plain text file (confbook.txt 2k)
Rich text format file (confbook.rtf 6k)
OpenOffice.org 1.0 Writer document (confbook.sxw 7k)
Microsoft Word 6.0/95 document (confbook.doc 11k)