Film technicians union NABET 700 has taken a leaf from the books of bank lenders everywhere by designing the collective bargaining equivalent to the pre-approved mortgage. And the Toronto local is shopping this worry-free marketing tool around the city’s commercial production community, offering a ‘pre-ratified commercial collective agreement’ to a couple of interested production houses.

According to 700’s business manager, Conor O’Sullivan, the collective agreement is ‘pre-ratified so that if there are companies interested [in certifying the union], we can sign the deal right off.’

This move has come about quietly in the city’s commercial production sector, currently bracing itself for an organization drive by nabet rival iatse, which is determined to sign up spot prodcos as quickly as possible (see Editorial in the Oct. 2 Playback commercial supplement On The Spot, and the p. 10 article in Sept. 18 Playback).

Quiet efficiency

The pre-ratified deal, meantime, is evidence of quiet efficiency on the part of NABET 700, a stark departure from its image only one year ago when it was a local in disarray.

Some film and tv technicians reported paying thousands in permit fees without securing a union membership card and the fringe benefits such as retirement savings contributions and vacation pay the card affords its owners. Frustrated techs were complaining bitterly. Local officials accused rival iatse of raiding aggressively. Eventually, hundreds of the 920 to 950 members deserted to ia.

Meanwhile, NABET 700’s parent, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, suspended certain local managers, placed 700 in trusteeship, and brought in Conor O’Sullivan, from sister Local 2020 – ACFC West – Vancouver, to sort out the mess.

But O’Sullivan says now, with the local six months clear of the trusteeship, NABET 700 stands as strong if not stronger than before. The local has signed new members, and, under an amnesty extended to those who left 700 for ia last year, has welcomed old members back to the fold. This month, O’Sullivan says, membership stands at 1,020 or so, higher than the pre-chaos tally.

The permittee rules – under which non-union workers pay a permit fee each time they work on a unionized crew and count these fees towards a minimum required to join the union – have been standardized. Now, says O’Sullivan, workers who accumulate $2,000 in permit fees are granted nabet membership so long as they sign up and, in some cases, meet some fundamental conditions.

For instance, some job classifications require education or training certification. Essentially, he says, the subjective criteria which made membership a contentious issue in the past have been discarded in favor of objective rules.

All of which brings us to nabet’s ‘quiet’ talks with commercial spot prodcos to discuss whether certification of technical crew would work.

‘There are two entities that I’ve been talking to and that’s who we worked this out with. We’re not trying at all to walk in and scoop the commercial market…because it’s so busy in the commercial industry. What we’re trying to do is lay the groundwork for the long term and get the producers who want to try it out and see if it works.’

The terms of the ‘pre-ratified’ deal make no mention of seniority, he says, so employers need not worry about that. ‘One of the keys to the contract,’ he says, is it permits employers to hire outside the union with non-union workers paying permit fees representing 5% of their wages. Once the fees total $2,000, ‘you’re in the union,’ he says. ‘We’re trying to build a bridge to the union.’

Although Toronto prodcos have indicated they would push any organizers to tackle one employer at a time, O’Sullivan would prefer ‘a standard contract. Trying to negotiate a hundred contracts a year is total insanity,’ he says, claiming any differences from one shop to another build resentment among the workers.

Targeting another contentious issue, O’Sullivan says ‘the pre-ratified deal would have the fringes in.’ In other words, the hourly rate required for a given technician – say $35 an hour – would represent the combined cost of the wage at $32 or $33 per hour, plus the amounts to be set aside for retirement savings and vacation pay. O’Sullivan says the worker ‘isn’t getting even 1% less [than non-union] and the producer is paying only about 1% more with the union, or three-point-five cents an hour.’

Why organize spot technicians now? iatse waded in first in Toronto, but says it has no plans to organize this group in Vancouver. Still, the move is on and, given that ia is a u.s.-based trade union, nabet sees its Canadian roots as an advantage.

‘We’re Canadian so we’re locally run and we have more sensitivity to the local market,’ O’Sullivan argues.

(We’ll have more coverage on this nabet issue in the Oct. 30 issue of On The Spot.) *

-www.nabet700.com