Vancouver: Back in March, Justice David Tysoe of the B.C. Supreme Court published a series of five recommendations designed to make B.C. labor more producer-friendly – especially for the province’s U.S, customers. The report was specifically critical of IATSE Local 891 and Teamsters Local 155 for the large backlog of grievances and seniority rules that limited hiring.

According to Don Ramsden, president of the 4,800-member IA 891, three of the five recommendations have been agreed to: a commitment to deal with grievances more deliberately through the BC Council of Film Unions; the recognition that master collective agreement language, which may be in conflict with union policy, reigns supreme; and the promise to negotiate a lower-budget contract.

Other recommendations, including changes to seniority, will likely wait until negotiations at the next bargaining table, says Ramsden, as will ways to deal with Tysoe’s proposed and contentious ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy that allows producers to sidestep allegedly problematic union members high on the seniority list.

However, the Tysoe Report couldn’t have been better advertising for the smaller and long-suffering union rival ACFC West, which has largely bucked the industry-wide downturn in B.C.

‘The way we operate is how the Tysoe Report recommends,’ says ACFC business manager Greg Chambers.

ACFC has low-budget agreements with the CFTPA, no seniority rules, and only a handful of grievances. With lower comparable rates than its huge competitor, the 600-member ACFC has all of a sudden become hip.

Year-over-year production volumes, claims Chambers, are actually up 10% in 2004, with boosts in regional production in Victoria and Kelowna helping ACFC to buck the overall decline in production in B.C., down 30%, in part by a soaring loonie.

It hasn’t always been so robust for ACFC, which opened in Vancouver in 1988 as a West Coast satellite to an Ontario organization. Immediately, there was turf friction with IA and frequent visits to the Labour Relations Board.

In the mid-1990s, ACFC found itself shut out of a large part of the production market when the BC Council of Film Unions won exclusivity over the biggest U.S. features and television series – a contract that continues today.

Eventually, ACFC in Ontario closed shop and left ACFC West alone on the coast to fend for itself, until it joined as a local of the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada, one of the largest unions in Canada, in 1999.

All the while, busy local West Coast producers such as Larry Sugar, James Shavick and Julia Keatley kept ACFC crews working. And today, being asked to bid on projects, which is happening with more regularity, is a positive step, Chambers explains. Big studios naturally lean to IA, he adds, because that’s what they know in the U.S.

In January 2005, ACFC will do a $15-million, 40-day feature called Slither (produced by Vancouver’s Brightlight Pictures and L.A.’s Gold Circle Productions) that will lead to several million dollars in payroll.

For IA, the success of ACFC means the mosquito in its tent has become even more annoying – and has led back to the LRB to duke it out over the issue of about 300 production workers with membership in both unions.

In November, the LRB ordered IA 891 to ‘cease and desist’ efforts requiring members to choose between ACFC and itself with the threat of expulsion.

Ramsden says the decision is under appeal, and that it’s worth fighting because of the cost to IA’s health and welfare plan. On projects such as the US$18-million Earthsea miniseries, for instance, many of the keys were senior IA members, even though ACFC was the union on set. That’s a loss of benefits that IA has to continue to cover.

‘Let’s not compete with the same people,’ says Ramsden. ‘You can’t compete when your assets are used by your neighbor.’

‘Members are free to work wherever they need to to stay employed,’ says Chambers, who adds that he doesn’t ask who among his members also holds an IA card. Of the LRB squabble, Chambers says, ‘None of that attracts production.’

Other LRB challenges, including jurisdiction over the ABC series The Days, staffed by ACFC, show that IA’s exclusivity over certain kinds of high-end production is not so secure, either.

Ramsden insists ACFC’s recent success has not contributed to IA’s estimated 30% decline. ‘These issues pale in light of the crashing U.S. dollar,’ he says.

A Nov. 22 industry meeting in Vancouver explored strategies to deal with the U.S. service production decline. Ramsden says discounts are already happening, but it’s a negotiating point with incoming producers.

‘We’re willing to glide to the bottom,’ says Ramsden. ‘We just don’t want to dive there.’