Vancouver: As Playback went to press, strike-weary members of the B.C. Projectionists Union were poised to vote on a deal with Famous Players and Cineplex theatre owners that gives the employers what they have asked for since the labor disruption began in December 1998.

Under the two-year agreement, the 12-screen projectionists’ rate will drop from $38 per hour to $15 and the seven-screen rate will drop from $34 per hour to $14.50. Also, theatres with fewer than seven screens are exempt from the contract, which means 17 of b.c.’s 29 Famous Players and Cineplex theatres will be non-union.

The union’s executive board recommended members support the deal, which went to a ratification vote April 13.

The huge rollback means despite the deal, many members will not return, says union president Damon Faulkner, who argues the union has not been broken, only diminished, by the new collective agreement. A severance package of $1 million – essentially double the previous severance package offered by the employers in December – will be paid out to projectionists who are laid off.

The new labor pact will mean that the union, IATSE Local 348, will be less than 30% of its current size. The hiring hall that used to fill 50 positions will now have about 14 or 15 40-hour-per-week positions to fill.

For Famous Players and Cineplex, projectionist wage expenses will drop 80% per year, says John Nixon, spokesman for the employers. ‘This collective agreement is comparable to the agreements we’ve signed in Ontario and Alberta.’ He adds the companies are ‘investing in new plants’ such as the Famous Players Silver City Mission cinema that opens in May and will fall under the new agreement.