Quebec labor negotiations

Montreal: Technicians and producers in Quebec are digging in for a long, and in all likelihood, brutal round of negotiations on a new collective agreement covering film and television production.

The stcvq, Quebec’s freelance film technicians union, has fired the opening salvo by signing an agreement with Montreal’s Allegro Films unionizing the feature Screamers, in violation of the more than 15-year-old reciprocity clause binding members of the producers association and the union.

Claude Heroux, cochairman of the apftq, Quebec’s producers association, says producers are willing to drop the reciprocity clause, but adds the stcvq remains inflexible on real salary rates and working conditions (turnaround, wrap, overtime and food) despite major budget cutbacks at Telefilm Canada, Radio-Canada and the National Film Board.

He says the union’s salary minimums may be the lowest on paper in Canada, ‘but there is not one technician in the union who actually works for minimum scale.’

According to Heroux, high union rates disadvantage Quebec production compared to other jurisdictions and will result in more production shifting outside the province, including coproductions with Europe.

‘The reality is that the outlook for the (Quebec) industry for 1995 is very gloomy,’ says Heroux.

In late December, Allegro Films and the 965-member stcvq signed an agreement unionizing the January portion of shooting on Allegro Films’ $14.2 million feature film Screamers.

Earlier in December, as the union was putting pressure on Allegro to sign, a spokesperson for the stcvq said if Allegro accepted the union’s standardized North American agreement, the reciprocity clause between the apftq and the union would become a non-issue.

In reply, in a year-end statement from the apftq, president Louise Baillargeon said the union had made a ‘sudden about-face,’ violating the reciprocity clause in the collective agreement by negotiating and signing a deal with Allegro, which is not a member of the association.

The apftq says it has appealed the Allegro/stcvq deal on Screamers to an arbitration committee and has withdrawn its participation, as a codefendant with the stcvq, in an Allegro-initiated legal suit claiming the reciprocity clause violates fair labor practice.

The now-expired collective agreement remains in force throughout the current negotiations.

The labor dispute is at the top of the agenda at an apftq board of directors meeting, slated for Jan. 16.