The adoption of new technologies and sagging film and TV production will dominate bargaining involving Canadian producers in 2006, as collective agreements with all the major unions and guilds are up for renewal.

‘The climate for negotiations is challenging, no question,’ says Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director, who is preparing for talks in March with the CFTPA and APFTQ on a new Independent Production Agreement.

The CFTPA is in the midst of – or preparing for – talks with the Directors Guild of Canada, the Writers Guild of Canada, and various NABET and IATSE locals.

But the most high-profile negotiations have Canadian and U.S. producers facing off with ACTRA on a new IPA before the current pact expires on Dec. 31.

The impact of new deals for actor rates and workplace conditions is so great on the service sector that talks on a new master production agreement with the Union of B.C. Performers (a branch of ACTRA), starting Feb. 21, will be led on the producers’ side by Nick Counter, president and chief negotiator for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing U.S. studios and networks. On the Canadian side, CFTPA rep Neil Haggquist will enjoy only observer status.

The last two IPA negotiations, in 2000 and 2003, wrapped relatively quickly. But John Barrack, CFTPA national executive VP and chief negotiator, says thorny issues were swept under the carpet each round to deliver industry stability to major U.S. producers.

Now that carpet is clumpy and needs airing, Barrack warns.

‘We’ve gone five or six years without a full discussion. There’s a need to address a range of issues,’ he says, forecasting that the talks with ACTRA could spill over into 2007, and risk major studios deciding to take their projects elsewhere if key concessions aren’t made early on.

‘We’re not looking for an unnecessary fight. But there comes a time when you have to fix some things,’ Barrack says.

Specifically, the producers want ACTRA to accept a tier structure that provides for wages based on a production’s budget, similar to what already exists in the CFTPA’s standard agreement with the DGC.

For its part, ACTRA will be looking to close the gap between its own minimum fees and those of the Screen Actors Guild in the U.S., and wants more work opportunities for its membership. In the past, ACTRA has suggested that Canadian actors get preferential early auditions on U.S. shoots.

Also complicating producer/union negotiations is the growth of various forms of digital media, and how producers will balance broadcasters that want all format rights in perpetuity with writers, directors and actors wanting to share in revenue surges from new digital broadband uses.

‘We will have to find workable solutions,’ says Julie Patry, the APFTQ’s director of industrial relations.

‘This is a new world,’ adds WGC executive director Maureen Parker, referring to podcasts, mobisodes, webisodes and other interactive media increasingly flooding the market.

Parker, currently negotiating a new IPA for writers and story editors with the CFTPA and APFTQ, says rights transfers for the Internet and other digital uses should be incorporated into new collective agreements so as to guard against unlimited use for content carriers.

At the same time, Parker echoes a constant refrain during the current labor talks – that flexibility and forward thinking are required.

‘The market [for digital media] is not yet defined. But the basic point is if there is additional product, writers should not work for free,’ she says.

If anything, the entire industry is going to school over digital media just as these collective agreements are up for renewal.

‘Part of the challenge is to see how far we can go in grappling with some of the [digital media] issues,’ says Arden Ryshpan, directors affairs manager at the DGC. ‘There’s a little bit of groping in the dark on both sides.’

(The DGC is continuing to bargain on a new collective agreement with the CFTPA, while stalled talks between the DGC’s Quebec council and the APFTQ have gone to mediation.)

Producers can argue that they are using mobisodes as promotional tie-ins to build buzz for existing series. If the promotional tie-ins work, the series succeed and there’s continuing work for actors, writers and directors.

But the unions and guilds are questioning whether mobisodes are truly promotional tools, or yet another new way to deliver content – one for which their members go without compensation.

Overall, the Canadian industry has cause to end 2006 with new collective agreements and labor peace. Existing SAG and Writers Guild of America contracts with the Hollywood studios come up for renewal in 2008.

Potential back-to-back U.S. actors and writers strikes in two years may have U.S. producers looking to stockpile product by producing more in Canada next year, as they did in 2001 ahead of SAG and WGA talks then.

All of which could provide a short-term boon to the Canadian industry after its current round of labor talks.

www.actra.ca

www.dgc.ca

www.wgc.ca

www.apftq.qc.ca