Hollywood Commission Launches MyConnext Online Tool to Report Abuse
Across the two surveys on workplace abuse that the Hollywood Commission has conducted over the past five years, nearly all of the 10,000 industry workers who responded (93% in 2019-20, 90% in 2022-23) asked for the same thing: a technological tool to create a timestamped record for reporting misconduct. When Commission chair and president Anita Hill spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the second survey’s results in January, she indicated that solutions to the sobering findings about lack of accountability were coming. Now, the Commission has unveiled one potentially powerful tool to give industry workers something they’ve been asking for.
MyConnext is a new online reporting system developed directly in response to the surveys, one that will allow workers to create a personal, timestamped record of their workplace experience, as well as anonymously and securely ask questions about policies and make reports of misconduct. In addition, a unique “hold for match” feature provides safety in numbers as well as flags serial offenders: A user can submit a report that is saved in the system until a second user reports the same person, after which both accounts are sent to their designated organization.
At launch, the organizations that have agreed to use MyConnext are the DGA, the WGA West, The Kennedy/Marshall Company (Kathleen Kennedy serves on the Hollywood Commission board alongside Hill and Nina Shaw), all U.S.-based Netflix productions and some U.S.-based Amazon productions. SAG-AFTRA’s Safe Place reporting tool, launched in 2021, can also be accessed through MyConnext. The Hollywood Commission expects that IATSE, currently in contract negotiations with the AMPTP, will join the platform later this year.
MyConnext will exist as a nonprofit separate from the Hollywood Commission, with its own management committee consisting of ReFrame director Andria Wilson Mirza, University of Illinois professor emerita Louise Fitzgerald (a leading academic in the psychology of sexual harassment) and Princeton ombuds officer Wokie Nwabueze (an expert in workplace culture). The tool is not intended to replace reporting processes provided by employers and guilds, nor is it equipped to conduct third-party investigations. But MyConnext ombuds Lillian Rivera will be available to help users navigate the site and explore their full options in response to workplace abuse. The site is powered by technology company Pluto 5000, which specializes in data encryption to ensure confidentiality and information security.
Although the reporting tool and ombuds resource are only available to workers from participating organizations, MyConnext reference materials that are available to anyone include information on reporting, arbitration, NDAs, workers’ rights and helplines.
“Workers must believe they will be heard and safe to raise concerns about inappropriate workplace conduct. MyConnext is the online tool they have been asking for,” Hill said in a statement. “It empowers workers who have experienced or witnessed harassment, discrimination, bullying or abuse by providing them with the resources they need, and reporting options for those who choose to come forward. And it does it in an environment that preserves and protests the rights of all parties with the dignity and sensitivity you would expect of a truly objective, fact-based user experience.”
Added one anonymous contributor who participated in user testing in a statement, “The harassment I endured was hands down one of the most challenging times of my life. I felt vulnerable not only due to the abuse of power I was experiencing, but also from the courage required for me to stand up for myself. MyConnext works as an approachable resource to support workers navigating these intimidating obstacles. It enables you to work through the complexity of these situations without having to be polished or at risk of immediate retaliation. This platform helps workers to keep their voices strong and to be heard, an empowering asset in situations of harassment in which silencing tactics are frequently used by the abuser.”
