In January, the Union of British Columbia Performers was incorporated into actra, bringing to a close a five-year battle between the two rival unions in b.c. that tore away at the entire national membership.

With the threads of disunity on the mend, the 10,000-member union is channeling its efforts towards strengthening the national organization so it has the clout to tackle pressing issues.

‘Film and tv is under provincial jurisdiction so there is always a tendency for producers to divide the union along provincial lines thereby weakening it,’ says Stephen Waddell, national executive director, ACTRA Performers Guild. ‘In disunity you become powerless.’

With this in mind, actra’s centralized structure is evolving to better reflect the regional concerns of performers, giving local unions control over their finances and political structure and more involvement in the decision-making process.

After their first principal role, performers can now join the union as apprentices, which has rejuvenated actra with new, younger blood and strengthened the collective bargaining power of the union. ‘If you can ensure the majority of performers are union members then that’s going to have a tendency to dry up non-union work,’ says Waddell.

This stronger, more unified collective will serve as the union’s ammunition as it heads into the new year with a renewed focus on tackling an issue as old as Canada itself – promoting Cancon.

With the federal government’s slashing of one-third of the cbc’s budget and resulting program cuts, actra is intensifying its role as advocate not only of Canadian performers but of an indigenous film industry. Waddell is concerned with the reliance on American location shoots, particularly if a rise in the dollar halts the booming service work.

While recognizing that large companies such as Alliance, Atlantis and Cinar are filling the production gap left in the wake of cbc cuts, the future contribution of small independent filmmakers is an area actra is targeting with particular concern.

‘There is no one, certainly not the government, helping young independent filmmakers make their films,’ says Waddell. To help prop up the indie scene, the union is stepping up pressure on government and industry to foster Canadian filmmaking, as well as negotiating agreements producers on low budgets can afford.

The perennial Cancon dilemma is also leading the union to become watchdogs of the latest developments in the new media.

Ensuring the Canadian industry isn’t shut out of the dth satellite universe by the u.s. and protecting its members’ rights in a borderless world of cultural product are high on actra’s to-do list.

‘Canadian content needs to be strengthened, not weakened, which appears to be the direction the crtc is being told to go by the production industry,’ says Waddell.

The Internet has opened up another can of worms – the right of actra members to residual rights on material manipulated for broadcast over the Web and accessible worldwide. This has cropped up as one of the most contentious issues in current cbc negotiations. ‘The cbc is putting their basic radio signal on the Internet, which can be picked up anywhere in the world,’ says Waddell. ‘Our members should be entitled to residual royalty payments, but cbc has taken the position that it’s only destined for Canadian audiences.’

actra is also facing a growing concern from members that they are working fewer days on each gig and American performers are taking many of the secondary as well as lead roles on location shoots.

In response, the union has taken on a dual role, on one hand lending its voice as Cancon advocate while also bolstering its ‘Cast Canadian’ campaign among American producers. Face to Face, the guild’s catalogue of members’ pictures and resumes, will be going online to make it easily accessible to international casting agents.

The new year will see actra begin negotiations with the specialty networks. With more channels on the horizon, it is becoming imperative that actra negotiate first agreements with the current specialties, many of which have been hiring actra performers without a contract. ‘We have sent out notices to all of the specialty channels and they have all responded positively,’ says Waddell.