Introduction and Background
You can always find news about negotiation between
employer and employee in Hong Kong; most of them are bad news which is about
strike, fired employee or cancelled contracts for new employment. It seems to
be worst for most employees as Hong Kong employers usually have more bargaining power for negotiation. To get the better result as well as
win-win situation, some tactics should be
required.
Let’s see below case about how employee to do wrong actions to make them in the lose position.
Employer:
Television Broadcasts Limited(TVB), founded in 1967, is the second over-the-air commercial television
station in Hong Kong.[1] With high quantity and quality of television dramas, nowadays TVB is the most famous among the
general public in Hong Kong and even in other countries and regions. Owning to high production of TV entertainment, a
large number of actors are in demand.
It has mainly two different actors----contract
artists and temporary actors. Since TVB has great power in entertainment
industry, they can control the arrangement of their TV drama/shows as well as
the opportunities for artist’s performance to public, no matter he/she is
famous star or freshman. For the temporary actors, TVB is the largest employee in Hong Kong that can provide most of posts and
performance opportunities to these actors. It is easy to understand how the huge advantages of the TVB bargaining power that to negotiate contract and
salary to employees.
Employee:
In Hong Kong entertainment business, it mainly
separated three fields---music, movie and TV that they are connected closely
together. The famous star in each field is absolutely advantages to entry other
two fields to get successful. In these three fields, TV can provide easiest way
for fresh artists that introduce to public and keep famous star as well know.
Base of this situation, artists normally prefer to
keep contract with TVB, they want to get acceptable salary, balanced workload
and performance opportunities. For temporary actors, TVB is their preferred choice because it can provide a
comparably stable jobs to them; none of temporary actors are required in music field and just
short-term contract can be provided in movie field.
In recent years, China TV market is growing that
they are welcome for Hong Kong artists
to take drama; local artists also want to get this chance to entry the big
Chinese market. Also, Hong Kong government seems to have plan to release more
licenses for public TV channel in Hong Kong, it can of course artists/actor
market
to be more active.
We will separate to parts
to focus on Famous Artist and Temporary Actor side to see what mistakes were made in their
negotiation with TVB.
Famous Artists
In
this part we are focus on famous artists who are well-known but not popular to be a superstar (For
superstar that they have absolute bargaining power for negotiation.)
For
example, artist Power Chan(陳國邦),
actor in recent famous TVB drama Confidant<大太監> , just agreed the new contract with TVB. He is delighted with his
new contract that about performance chance and bonus. However, former TVB
artists Ha Yu (夏雨)
and Kingdom Yuen (苑瓊丹)
refused to renew their contracts with TVB. After that they have
complained about TVB’s harshness and niggardness.[2]
Power Chan(陳國邦)
Ha Yu (夏雨)
Kingdom Yuen (苑瓊丹)
Fixed-pie perception
The fixed-pie perception is the belief that the
other party’s interests are directly and completely opposed to one’s own
interests.[3] Most of negotiators are likely to miss the appropriate opportunity to
solve those issues which need to be negotiated since they have fixed-pie
perception.
In the case of TVB, artists may think that their own
interests are incompatible with employer’s interests. If their wages have been
increased, the company’s labor cost will go up to some extent and the company’s
interest will drop down. This result is the last thing TVB wants to see.
In reality, this salary negotiation is not an
entirely competitive situation. The relationship between the artist and the
employer is more like cooperation than competition. TVB needs artists to shoot movies and TV dramas
while artists need TVB to arrange all
things that require in the shooting.
In order to achieve win-win negotiation, artists can
exploit the differences in two parties. People differ in their abilities and
talents. This is the differences in capabilities. Artists have their endowments
in acting. Maybe they are more good-look than common person or they have special talents
in playacting, it is the main resource TVB does not have these capabilities.
In the negotiating procedure, artists should make
full use of the differences in capabilities. They should let TVB know that it is hard to find other artists at the
same or higher level and their cooperation with the company can create value. Rather than salary,
a better arrangement of artists’ schedules (more annual leave/ setup minimum work
hours per day) and increase more sources for drama (invite international directors/artists
for cooperation that can upgrade the drama quality) can also make both sides
well.
False Conflict
False Conflict occurs when people believe that their
interests are incompatible with the other party’s interests when, in fact, they
are not.[4]False Conflict may exert lose-lose effect in negotiations. It means that
both parties face the loss in the negotiating process. This effect is resulted
from lose-lose agreement which occurs when people fail to utilize compatible
interest.
In the case of TVB, what should artists do to avoid
lose-lose agreement?
Firstly, they should realize that their interests
are not opposed by the employer. TVB’s income is mainly from advisements through their famous shows and drama. Artist’s income is not just the salary,
but also how famous of this artist that he/she can increase their wage in
coming jobs. Artists should have an exact understanding of the
employer’s interests. Except the common interests, they should know the
differences between both of them.
There are differences in expectations.
In light of the announcement of the company’s annual
results, artists will suppose that raising salary is just a piece of cake for TVB because the profit of the company is increasing
steadily in recent years. Whereas, the employer may think that it becomes
harder for company to earn money in the entertainment industry as the challenge from
new entrants and China. Artists can explain a higher salary and long-term
contract should be win-win because human power to fight the coming war; even a
better benefit with promise of flexible schedule can make employees more loyal
for TVB.
Compromise
Although some artists left TVB for mainland China to
develop their career, part of them remained to stay in TVB. In the end, they
got higher wage than before, but they were asked to act more TV dramas.
Actually, both TVB and artists made the equal
concessions, for TVB offered higher wage while artists needed to act more TV
dramas according to the contract. Even so, it did not reach the win-win
negotiation.
For the artists, the income from acting TV dramas
was just a part of their annual income. They also obtained income from other
forms, such as being the advertising spokesperson.
However, since they needed to spend more time on acting dramas, they were not
able to guarantee the good quality of their performance as before. Also, with
the higher labor cost that TVB needed to pay than before, the input on TV
dramas must be reduced, which was also harmful for the quality of TV dramas.
Finally, TVB may lose the original competition advantage, so that it would
damage influence power of these artists as well as their fame. Therefore, the
further career development of these artists may be influenced.
Thus, the compromise made both TVB and artists lose
their opportunities and even their original competition advantage. This is due to
difference in valuation.
On one hand, TVB prefers to maintain its high
production of TV dramas. As an increasing number of artists leave TVB, it has
to ask its remaining artists to act more dramas to keep the high production.
On the other hand, artists pay more attention on
increasing their wage regardless of the quality of their works and further
career development.
Obviously, the result of negotiation did not reach
the win-win.
Temporary actors
Previously TVB kept long-term stable cooperation
with three extra actor agencies. It is said that TVB set up low wages in the
contracts, for each extra actor just got HK$19 per hour. After agency getting a
cut, only 11 to 13 was remained. More importantly, the wage level had been kept
for around eight years.
In April 2011, TVB began to negotiate about wages of
extra actors with the three agencies. Finally, however, the wage negotiation
was broken off. The reason why this situation happened is as bellowed.
Adopting a Cooperative Orientation
In the beginning of negotiation, TVB brought forward
two proposals; one was that 42 per hour were offered to the extra actors who
take part in record of variety show programs. The other one was that the extra
actors who participate in TV series could get HKD38.75 per hour. However, TVB also emphasized the
fact that the proposals were temporary. The final version would be released
later.
However, even so, the agencies agreed with TVB
rather than stick to their guns. Instead of taking the risk of damaging the
long-term stable cooperation with TVB, they wanted to sustain good cooperation
relationship. Therefore, they continued to provide full support to TVB’s
current work as usual, which was regarded as the way of revealing their BATNA
to TVB. Nonetheless, they did not urge TVB to make the final contract in a
short time. They held a cooperative orientation and thought that they would
reach win-win outcomes.
Finally, the truth went opposite way of what the
agencies believed. TVB began to call for tenders in newspapers. The agents face
totally lose situation that they provide extra services during negotiation
period but they got nothing result.
Differences in expectation
From extra actor agencies’ perspective, they thought
that if they adopted a cooperative orientation, which was significant for
forming good relationship with TVB, they would renew the contract with TVB
successfully. Finally, they would get win-win outcomes. However, the reality
was that TVB stopped cooperation with them without any inform.
TVB believed that calling for tenders on public was
more formal, and TVB expected that the agencies would continue the cooperation
relationship through the way of winning the tender.
The differences in expectation between agencies and
TVB made the result of negotiation far away from win-win outcome.
Delay
In the negotiation case,
the temporary actor agencies also wrongly accept the delay of final contract;
they accept a temporary contract that they expect a happy ending for them.
Extra time does not guarantee that negotiators will reach an integrative
agreement and the quality of negotiation does not improve with additional time.[5]
As the point about
adopting a cooperation orientation, agencies accepted the TVB temporary offer.
They not only want to keep good and long term relationship with TVB, but also
expect a long negotiation time can make the contract better. We can see the
result that TVB broke off it.
Reference:
[1] Wikipedia,(2013). TVB
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVB
[2] Addy (2013, January 28). TVB approach to Power Chan for contract renew
[3] Thompson, Leigh L. (2009). The mind and heart of
the negotiator. Upper Saddle River. Prentice Hall.
[4] Thompson, Leigh L. (2009). The mind and heart of
the negotiator. Upper Saddle River. Prentice Hall.
[5].展娟娟,
(2011, May 6). 中介公司与TVB工资谈判破裂 演员罢演波及多部剧集 凤凰网娱乐
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