The war between one of Canada’s oldest unions and an upstart organization claiming to represent more than 1,000 extras across Canada is heating up.

The Professional Association of Canadian Talent has announced it will file a formal application this month with the federal board which grants collective bargaining rights in hopes of seizing the power to bargain for extras on film and television productions.

Extras currently fall under the jurisdiction of actra, the powerful union representing Canada’s professional performers since 1943.

Charlie Fife, president of pact, says certification from the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal is the final step to his union’s approval to negotiate a contract on behalf of extras with federally regulated producers such as cbc and nfb.

‘When all is said and done, we fully expect to have our certification order to bargain for our people,’ says Fife, who will launch a cross-country tour in mid-February to bolster membership.

capprt is the federal body which administers the collective bargaining process and deals with the certification of artists associations, the determination of appropriate sectors for collective bargaining, as well as unfair labor practice complaints.

pact is affiliated with the Canadian Media Guild, a union representing more than 4,000 journalists, producers, announcers and ad sales people across the nation.

Alex Gill, a spokesman for actra, says his union will do everything in its power to offset pact’s efforts.

‘capprt has already ruled that we have exclusive jurisdiction over performers in the recorded media in Canada,’ Gill says.

‘The agreements that we have…state very plainly: ‘actra is the sole bargaining agent for performers.’ Full stop. If the Canadian Media Guild, if pact wants to contest this, they’ve got a fight on their hands.’

Fife, however, says actra has never represented extras in any negotiations and has therefore abandoned those performers. That is the argument he is going to take before the capprt.

Fife, a professional musician who was moonlighting as an extra before headmanning the union drive, says pact’s main concerns are health and safety, improved wages, and assuring members receive a proper meal and are not segregated during breaks.

Productions, particularly those in Toronto, tend to feed extras food that is of lower quality than that which is fed to cast and crew, says Fife. ‘I’d say the food issue is almost bigger than the money in Toronto.’

If pact is awarded the certificate, it will begin collecting union dues, which it is not allowed to do until a contract is negotiated for its members. Instead, the cmg has flipped the bill for organizing expenses to this point, Fife says.