Employee injured on set of Disney film Disenchanted says he was transferred to avoid ‘liability’

A film set painter who says he was injured on the set of Disney’s Disenchanted has accused his former boss of transferring him to another production to avoid “liability” – and then sacking him.

An Unfair Dismissals Act claim by David Brady against Metropolitan Films International Ltd is one of about 40 complaints by set workers in the breakaway Irish Film Workers’ Association (IFWA) trade union against various entities controlled by producers Morgan O’Sullivan and the late James Flynn.

Irish Business and Employers Confederation (Ibec) representatives appearing for the firm said Mr Brady was never employed by it – only by designated activity companies set up for film and TV productions, referring to a final contract for the production firm behind the AMC sci-fi series Moonhaven.

In his evidence, Mr Brady said he only worked on Moonhaven for “an hour” before being sacked by a construction manager on August 23rd, 2021 – the end of his six-year career as a scenery painter.

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He said he had “a bit of a row” with that construction manager about knee pain following an alleged workplace injury on the Disenchanted set earlier that summer and was called to work in the prop department on the Moonhaven set rather than the construction crew.

He said when he questioned the move, the same construction manager sent him off site. “He wouldn’t even give me an explanation,” Mr Brady said.

Mr Brady said he was later asked by text to confirm a “verbal resignation” and did so – before rescinding it after taking legal advice.

His trade union rep, IFWA organiser Liz Murray, told the WRC her client had some years earlier agreed to be apprenticed to a master painter on set and take a reduced apprentice wage.

Mr Brady said the construction manager said after he was sacked there was “no apprenticeship” – and claims he is due €35,886 in back wages to make up the difference.

The union also alleges breaches of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1994 on holiday entitlements and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act.

Mr Brady said the day he had been injured, he worked 13½ hours on set, adding that 10-hour days were routine.

The respondents maintain that the multiple designated activity companies set up for tax relief on film and TV production, which include Disney’s Disenchanted; Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel; Vikings on Amazon Prime and Into the Badlands on AMC, were not “in any way a circumvention of employment rights”.

Last year the WRC rejected jurisdiction in five test cases, ruling the workers had not been employees of the production firms named – but has run full hearings of the remainder since January, following appeals to the Labour Court.

Ms Murray said on Monday that the Labour Court’s ruling in one of the test cases had since been overturned following High Court judicial review proceedings brought by the union.

She added that Ibec and the production firms had met the case with “chicanery” which “ill-becomes any professional representative body”.

After hearing the final case in the series, adjudicating officer Catherine Byrne said she expected to give her decision in writing on all of the remaining cases simultaneously in the autumn.