Like every other sector of the film and television industry, Canada’s unions and guilds have had a year without downtime.

And while other facets of the industry settle in for the Christmas hiatus, there’s no rest for the weary on the union front as the various incarnations gear up for end-of-year negotiations.

Facing a December or January deadline with their respective Independent Production Agreements with the cftpa and apftq, the Writers Guild of Canada and actra are expecting difficult negotiations with the producers associations. Over at the wgc, it wants to extend its jurisdiction to the animation sector (see story, p. 1). For its part, actra has 112 issues to discuss with the producers associations (pared down from nearly 300), for its Dec. 31 deadline. The producers have an equal number of talking points.

The months ahead will cap a year that included union and guild participation in crtc hearings including the Canadian Television Policy Review in September and the New Media hearings this month. actra, the dgc, wgc and the Guild of Canadian Film Composers are among those with a voice at the regulator’s headquarters.

With the past, present and future in mind, Playback asked 11 national unions and guilds representing nearly 30,000 actors, writers, directors, technicians and film composers, for a progress report on the goals they set for 1998 and what’s on their agenda for 1999.

Stay tuned, as it were.

(Report prepared by Meg Mathur, Leo Rice-Barker and Ian Edwards.)

*ACFC West

Association of Canadian Film Craftspeople West

ACFC West was officially orphaned in 1998 when its parent organization, the Toronto-based Association of Canadian Film Craftspeople, dissolved in June. However, ACFC West had for the past four years operated autonomously and had taken steps to try and create a market for itself in the contentious b.c. market.

In the spring, in a bid to strengthen itself, ACFC West joined massive union cep – a strategic step to keep ACFC West from succumbing to the expansion of the B.C. Council of Film Unions.

Milestones in 1998, says business agent Connor O’Sullivan, were the increase in membership to 500 from 150 members at peak periods and the ability to crew seven productions at once. (ACFC West oversaw five series including Cold Squad and Dead Man’s Gun and a dozen mows.)

In 1999, ACFC West will likely be back in familiar territory – fighting for its life as Vancouver unions IATSE Local 891 and Teamsters Local 155 try to recertify The New Addams Family and other shows with an existing collective agreement with acfc.

ACFC West is currently defending itself at b.c.’s Labour Relations Board and promoting the message that there is room in Vancouver for two technical unions.

Contact:

Connor O’Sullivan,

Business agent,

555 Brooksbank Ave.,

N. Vancouver, b.c. V7J 3S5

Tel.: (604) 983-5450

Fax: (604) 983-5451

*ACTRA

Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists

ACTRA is currently negotiating with the cftpa and the apftq, and u.s. producers including Warner Bros., Universal and Fox, through the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, on their Independent Production Agreement, which expires on Dec. 31.

The union presented 112 proposals, which were distilled from about 300 proposals from members, committees and local councils.

‘The producers have tabled an equal number of proposals to ours,’ says actra’s national executive director Stephen Waddell, ‘and a majority of those issues are attempting to take back some of the achievements and improvements that we made in the last agreement.’

With respect to non-Canadian production, the producers have tabled proposals that the minimum prepayment of 105% for television use for a period of four years should be reduced to 70% prepayment for five years.

The producers have also proposed that the line count for principal performers be 13 lines or more, rather than the current 11 lines or more.

One of actra’s top objectives is to gain equal working conditions and rates as u.s. performers. For example, Waddell says u.s. performers on sag contracts get a 12-hour rest between days, while Canadians get 10 hours rest between days.

actra is also looking for more protection for child performers and improving their tutoring conditions. There are also a number of proposals for health and safety on the set.

Another union proposal is to provide a production incentive to Canadian low-budget, indigenous producers to use professional performers for substantially reduced rates.

‘By and large they’re using actra members,’ Waddell says, ‘but it’s very difficult given the budget of these low-budget productions to do so on true indigenous Canadian production.’

He says that ‘the reading we get from our membership is they want the opportunity to play leads and challenging roles in Canadian features and there aren’t enough of them, so we believe Canadian performers would be willing to accept reducing their upfront compensation. Of course, if the program or the feature is successful, we’d like to see increased back-end compensation.’

actra was at the negotiating table with the Institute of Canadian Advertisers on Nov. 23 to work on a commercial agreement.

The association recently completed a two-year radio and tv agreement with the cbc. Under the old agreement, performers were paid for their work on the original production and then a percentage of the fee for each broadcast. The agreement is now based on the broadcast window model in the ipa, where the performers are paid for their time and the rights are prebought for an x-number of plays instead of waiting for residuals.

actra is investigating what producers’ and performers’ needs are for producing material on cd-roms and the Internet.

Waddell says the ipa has for many years allowed for distribution of this type of material, but material created directly for those media is another story.

‘In that respect,’ Waddell says, ‘we’ve faced certain challenges from new media producers who felt our existing agreements were too rich or didn’t quite adapt to, or take into account, the different forms of production and distribution in those new media.

‘We’ve attempted to meet those concerns and are continuing to look at those concerns and perhaps find ways of adapting to those forms of new production.’

For the b.c. branch of actra (the Union of B.C. Performers), 1998 was a year of resolution after a year of acrimony. The 3,500-member union was the last major b.c. union to sign a master collective agreement with u.s. producers.

In 1999, ubcp will renegotiate that master, which settled the labor climate that had been recently punctuated by skirmishes with the feature Wrongfully Accused and Police Academy: The Series.

Contact:

Stephen Waddell,

National executive director,

2239 Yonge St.,

Toronto, Ont. M4S 2B5

Tel.: (416) 489-1311 or

1-800-387-3516

Fax: (416) 489-8076

Web: www.actra.com

*ARRQ

l’Association des realisateurs et realisatrices du Quebec

The arrq represents 185 French-language directors in film and television and is primarily concerned with ensuring its members are respected in terms of working conditions and ‘creative territory,’ says president Philippe Baylaucq.

A current preoccupation concerns ‘the safeguarding of the creative authority of directors,’ particularly in television.

In this its 25th year, the arrq is negotiating its first collective tv agreement with producers in the apftq. The arrq has an arbitration option and is determined to have the agreement signed in ’99.

The directors’ primary objectives include establishing minimum salary and working standards, and defining the role and authority of directors across a wide variety of Quebec tv productions, from drama series to game shows.

‘We maintain the director is the person ultimately responsible for the overall coherence of the audiovisual work. It’s a long battle because increasingly producers consider directors as technicians,’ says Baylaucq.

arrq reports progress on various fronts including the growth of its membership. The Quebec association is also developing programs in common with the Directors Guild of Canada and director groups in French-speaking European territories.

arrq intends to intercede in the revision process of Canada’s Copyright Law, specifically on the issue of title-holder rights for audiovisual works. The directors want to ensure a percentage of title rights are awarded to them, and not exclusively to producers, says Baylaucq.

Other arrq goals in ’99 include strengthening membership service programs such as health, personal financing and assurance. Many of these internal programs are tied to the signing of the collective tv agreement with the producers.

Contact:

Lucette Lupien,

Director-general,

3480, rue St. Denis,

Montreal, Que. H2X 3L3

Tel.: (514) 842-7373

Fax: (514) 842-6789

E-mail: realiser@arrq.qc. ca

Web: www.quebec.audiovisuel.com

*DGC

Directors Guild of Canada

At the Canadian Television Policy Hearings, the dgc presented its drama expenditure solution called ‘Seven and Seven from Seven to Eleven,’ which calls for the crtc to obligate broadcasters to spend at least 7% of their previous year’s advertising revenues on the underrepresented Canadian production categories.

The dgc also said that at least seven hours of first-run Canadian programming in the underrepresented categories should be broadcast in primetime, and peak viewing hours of these first-run programs should be extended to 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

dgc president Allan King says he thought the commission was receptive to his proposal and is hopeful they will go forward.

The dgc recently incorporated the Directors’ Rights Collective of Canada to collect royalties for members’ productions that aired on European television.

dgc’s national executive director Pamela Brand, who is overseeing the collective, says the guild will be negotiating with a variety of European collectives, including Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France and Hungary, to collect funds from levies on blank video tapes and video rentals.

The Canadian collective is still in the very early stages, Brand says, and they don’t yet know exactly how much money they’ll be collecting until they sign or are close to signing agreements with the individual collectives.

dgc representatives attended the Australian Screen Directors Association’s annual general meeting in late November where they met with other directors guilds from New Zealand and Germany and with Quebec’s arrq.

With all the international coproduction treaties and filmmakers shooting outside their own countries, ‘it’s important that we can, as it were, regulate the working conditions of our members in other territories, and they in ours, so that we aren’t stepping on each other’s toes or breaching each other’s agreements,’ King says.

The more the dgc knows about directors’ experiences in other countries, King adds, the better the organization can deal with problems abroad and make comparisons about what works and what doesn’t.

The dgc has 2,300 members.

Contact:

Pamela Brand,

National executive director,

387 Bloor St. E.,

Suite 401

Toronto, Ont. M4W 1H7

Tel.: (416) 972-0098

Fax: (416) 972-0820

*GCFC

Guild of Canadian Film Composers

The gcfc made a presentation at the crtc’s new media policy hearing on Nov. 23. The gcfc’s president Paul Hoffert says in terms of the Internet, for example, ‘some of the activities [online radio and tv stations] look, sound and smell like broadcasting.’

He says broadcasters’ conditions of licence should also apply to the Internet and that any online radio and tv stations should also be subject to Cancon requirements.

Another issue for the union this year that will carry forward to 1999 is ensuring that the music composition and production budgets submitted to Telefilm Canada are consistent with the actual expenditure.

Hoffert says composers ‘routinely’ face a take-the-money-or-leave-it scenario when production budget overruns cut into the music budget.

‘The entire basis of funding of the film is this budget that gets presented,’ Hoffert says, ‘and if the numbers don’t match the budget that was presented, we don’t think that’s right.’

For 1999, the gcfc is following socan’s request to the Court of Appeals to set aside its January 1998 copyright ruling which reduced the amount that socan can collect from commercial television stations from 2.1% to 1.8% of their gross advertising revenue, and also allows tv producers to negotiate performing rights directly with the composers bypassing socan and the Copyright Board.

If the board rules in favor of socan on Feb. 11, 1999, ‘it will go back to business as usual,’ Hoffert says. But if the ruling is against socan’s appeal, there will need to be ‘a major realignment of the way composers do business in Canada,’ he says, adding:

‘There’s a great concern on behalf of composers that with all of these new rights that are coming up and with the realignment of the Copyright Board decisions that it’s just too complicated, too time consuming and too dangerous for individual composers not to have a collective voice to sort it out.’

The gcfc, which opened a branch in Montreal and in Vancouver earlier this year, has 170 members.

Contact:

Jack Preobrazenski,

Administrator,

275 King St. E.,

Box 291

Toronto, Ont. M5A 1K2

Tel.: (416 ) 484-4091

Fax: (416) 484-7409

Web: www.gcfc.ca

*IATSE

At IATSE Local 891, the largest union in b.c., a membership drive expanded the roster by 65% to about 2,800 members. Senior agents of Local 891 continue to put pressure on competitive union acfc, even though 891 has been granted an exclusive right to handle high-end production in b.c.

At the iatse camera unit, Local 669, which actually represents the four Western provinces, membership has grown 8% to 363, the vast majority in b.c. In 1999, Local 669 will work with Capilano College to develop a camera assisting course.

The B.C. Projectionists Union (IATSE Local 348), meanwhile, faces a bleak 1999. Exhibitors Famous Players and Cineplex Odeon can legally lock out the unions, and contract negotiations have not resumed. The unions are battling an offer from the employers to halve wages.

At IATSE Local 849 in Halifax, which represents film technicians in Atlantic Canada, business agent Charlotte Shurko, says she is pleased with the amount of work coming to Atlantic Canada, ‘We’re definitely in a growth period,’ she says. Membership is close to 400.

IATSE 667, which represents camera technicians in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, will have had 123 productions for 1998 by the end of the year, according to business representative Rick Perotto. The 525-member union had 91 productions last year.

While continuing work with American and other big-budget productions, the union started servicing lower-budget Canadian productions (under $2.5 million). Instead of working for hourly rates, crew members work for a flat rate, which is about 15% less.

‘We felt we should be more involved in Canadian productions,’ says Perotto, adding that it also helps his junior members gain experience and that it’s a ‘win-win situation.’

In January 1999, IATSE 667 will be holding hands-on seminars on upgrading camera skills in Halifax during the weeks of Jan. 19 and Jan. 26, and in Toronto the week of Jan. 12 and the weeks of Feb. 9 and Feb. 16.

Some companies supplying facilities, equipment and/or speakers will include Kodak, Panavision, Clairmont Camera and William F. White, and Perotto hopes to include a seminar on video and hdtv productions.

He says the union will also be working more on marketing Canadian dops to American producers who shoot in Canada.

An IATSE Local 873 spokesperson in Toronto wasn’t available before press time.

Contact:

James Wood,

Business agent,

258 Adelaide St. W.,

Suite 403,

Toronto, Ont. M5A 1N1

Tel.: (416) 362-3569

Fax: (416) 362-3483

*NABET 700

National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians

NABET 700 won a labor dispute this year with Sullivan Entertainment and Naked City Productions.

While shooting Wind at My Back’s third season, Sullivan was ‘engaging technicians in the classification that we represent as non-union labor,’ says Edward Jeffrey, NABET 700’s service representative. Sullivan and NABET 700 reached an agreement and every Sullivan show that’s been produced in Ontario since then has signed a nabet contract for technicians. (Sullivan also works with other unions.)

The union also settled a one-and-half-year labor dispute in March with Naked City Productions on its mow Naked City, which had used non-union workers.

The union oversaw about 73 film and tv productions, which business representative Linda Gardon says is a record high. Last year at this time, nabet was involved in just over 50 productions.

The union’s prime objective is to sign more union contracts, and by doing so, create work opportunities for its membership, which increased by 100 this year to about 1,000. Gardon says NABET 700 currently has 2,000 membership applications.

NABET 700 is also looking into organizing more non-union video productions. Gardon hopes to increase the number of collective agreements the union signs as significantly in the video sector as it has in the film sector.

Contact:

Linda Gardon,

Business representative,

1179A King St. W.,

Studio 102,

Toronto, Ont. M6K 3C5

Tel.: (416) 536-4827

Fax: (416) 536-0859

*SARDeC

La Societe des auteurs, recherchistes, documentalistes et compositeurs

The primary objectives for the Quebec screenwriters guild, which represents just over 700 screenwriters in film, tv and radio, include efforts to complete two first-time collective agreements, for feature films with the apftq (Quebec producers), and for television with broadcaster Groupe tva.

The agreement with the producers association is very close to completion and is in compulsory mediation. ‘After five years we had to ask for mediation,’ says Yves Legare, sardec’s director-general.

Unlike the more structured and better remunerated television environment, Legare says feature film screenwriters are obliged to work outside a formal framework. He says the issues include sufficient funding and support for writers throughout the long research, development and writing phases.

‘There’s an agreement in English with the Writers Guild of Canada and we can be inspired by that. In a sense, we shouldn’t forget that the author is also an investor,’ he says.

Elsewhere, sardec undertook efforts to deliver the writers’ message to the wider industry as a coalition participant opposed to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and as an intervenor in the Canadian Heritage Feature Film Review.

It also met with Telefilm Canada on the issue of development funding and presented briefs to the crtc this year on the definition of a Canadian program and the future of Canadian television, as well as a third brief on new French-language specialty channels. Those specialty hearings take place in Montreal starting Dec. 7.

The negotiations with Groupe tva (Tele-Metropole), which produces as well as broadcasts a wide range of programs, including drama, have been ongoing for some 30 months now, and Legare says progress is being made.

‘First-time agreements are always more complicated than renewals because the parties have to discuss all of the conditions while with renewals we try to limit ourselves to specific problematic clauses.’

sardec celebrates its 50th anniversary in ’99 and a number of commemorative projects are planned.

Other new business includes opening talks on a renewed collective agreement for tv with producers. The existing agreement has expired but is still in effect, and sardec will ask that negotiations begin in ’99.

sardec is also preparing position statements on the ongoing Copyright Law revision.

Another growing area of interest for the writers is multimedia. Legare says multimedia is a natural extension of sardec’s jurisdiction as many writers are being solicited ‘to do what we might call screenplays for multimedia.’

sardec has created a ‘prototype’ contract for multimedia production. ‘The question of copyright and the Internet is also a preoccupation.’

Contact:

Yves Legare,

Director-general,

1229, rue Panet,

Montreal, Que. H2L 2Y6

Tel.: (514) 526-9196

Fax: (514) 526-4124

E-mail: sardec@globetrotter.net

Web: www.quebec.audiovisuel.com

*STCVQ

Syndicat des techniciennes et techniciens du cinema et de la video du Quebec

One of the major challenges facing the stcvq this year has been efforts at harmonizing working conditions with the apvq, specifically technicians who work in video on drama series, a growing category. The issue concerns film technicians from the stcvq who work in video (in the apvq) but under generally inferior working conditions.

The union’s other principal preoccupation in ’98 has been the promotion of Quebec as an international shooting location and an extensive professional development program tied to promotional efforts. The development program is self-financed by the union and begins in January 1999, with some 300 technicians already enrolled.

The goal of working with the apvq to upgrade conditions in the video sector has largely been attained, says Catherine Loumede, stcvq director-general.

‘We’ve started to work together, and on the Jules Verne set [an hd production] it is the stcvq working conditions [regulations] which are being applied,’ says Loumede.

Membership has doubled in the past four years to 1,650.

The wide-ranging 1996 collective agreement with Quebec’s producers association, the apftq, expires in the fall of ’99 and the stcvq says it will begin departmental (craft) and general assembly consultations towards a new round of renewal talks early in the new year.

‘The big challenge will be the renewal of the collective agreement,’ says Loumede. ‘We are going to have to find ways of [reducing] the number of working hours. And health and security questions should not be minimized, either.’

The stcvq will also seek a better equilibrium between conditions on foreign location shoots and Quebec-content productions.

‘As a union we have to continue to support our own productions, specifically feature films. That’s a major challenge. We [our technicians] can’t survive on 10 feature films a year. If we didn’t have foreign productions a lot of people would just leave, and we’d lose competency,’ says Loumede. Loumede says the stcvq also wants to improve conditions on location shoots.

Contact:

Catherine Loumede,

Director-general,

4200, boul. St-Laurent,

Bureau 911,

Montreal, Que. H2W 2R2

Tel.: (514) 985-5751

Fax: (514) 985-2227.

Web: www.stcvq.qc.ca

*UDA

Union des Artistes

UDA is active in virtually all areas of the entertainment and media industries and manages its business affairs through some 30 collective agreements including agreements in film, tv and other media including radio and theater.

uda had three major goals in ’98, finalizing agreements with commercial producers represented by ad agencies, producers and the Association of Canadian Advertisers, and with legit theater operators and the apftq.

Heading off a confrontation with producers, uda recently worked out an interim monetary agreement for film and tv. ‘The agreement has not been ratified but at least we have a deal,’ says uda president Pierre Curzi. He says members were losing ground and minimums had not changed in several years.

uda was successful in ’98 in lobbying for the maintenance of French-track song quotas for radio.

uda’s lobby of the Quebec government in ’98 for new funding in music and cinema proved effective with an additional $5 million granted for music and $10 million in new film funding for sodec over the next three years.

uda also pushed hard for the new Quebec tax credit for dubbing and is making similar representations on the federal level. For the first time, uda members are part of an internal sodec commission studying the difficult dubbing question.

uda will continue to negotiate a new collective agreement with the apftq on other issues, including working conditions. Curzi says working conditions in film and tv, including health and safety conditions, continue to deteriorate.

Another major issue for uda going forward concerns neighboring rights for sound (Bill C-32).

uda has made a major investment in collective management representation in association with actra, the American Federation of Musicians and producers. In the year ahead, a federal tribunal is scheduled to consider a tariff schedule for these rights.

‘This is essential because if it’s not enough we’re dead,’ says Curzi. He says uda and its partners have invested as much as $1.5 million in the neighboring rights issue. ‘We think we’ve won the fight [in principle] but that still doesn’t give us a rate,’ he says.

The third major objective ahead for uda is the ‘re-engineering’ of its membership and business relations. uda has 5,700 full-time members in addition to more than 4,000 ‘stagaires.’

Contact:

Jean-Robert Choquet,

Director-general,

3433, rue Stanley,

Montreal, Que. H3A 1S2

Tel.: (514) 288-6682

Fax: (514) 288-1807

*WGC

Writers Guild of Canada

The wgc is preparing for Independent Production Agreement negotiations with the cftpa and apftq in January. Expecting a ‘difficult session,’ wgc president Maureen Parker says issues will include trying to extend the wgc’s jurisdiction over the animation sector (see news story, p. 1),

The wgc is attempting to overhaul the back-end compensation system to make royalty payments more equitable and reporting easier to enforce.

In the last year, the guild has audited a number of production companies with respect to varying royalty payments and reporting. ‘None of the companies that we audited have complied willingly with the terms of the agreement,’ Parker says, adding that some production companies ‘haven’t been bad’ but others ‘have been a disaster.’

The wgc/cbc radio and television agreement went into effect in September after two ‘arduous’ years of bargaining, according to Parker. She says recent cbc budget cuts and a shift away from in-house development and production to contracting out to independent producers increased the difficulty of negotiating.

The 1998-2000 agreement includes new royalty provisions for archival programming (programming contracted and produced prior to the 1998 agreement) in which royalties for cable/pay/satellite broadcast increases to 10% of gross sales – up from 5%.

‘The cbc informed us that they would not be broadcasting or distributing any of the archival programming if a reclearance fee was attached to a program,’ Parker says. ‘We believed they still had a lot of shelf life left, and as the reclearance fee was set to decline dramatically in August of 1998 (under the 1988 cbc agreement), we had to compromise.

‘As a result, these programs should become more salable while earning our writers an equitable share of the proceeds.’

The 1,300-member guild is also redesigning its Website, to be relaunched at the end of December. This month it introduced an online, password-protected membership directory for use by members and other interested users (who have to contact the guild first).

The wgc will be holding its third annual Top Ten awards for screenwriting on April 19, 1999.

Contact:

Jim McKee,

Director of policy and

communications,

123 Edward St.,

Suite 1225,

Toronto, Ont. M5G 1E2

Tel.: (416) 979-7907

Fax: (416) 979-9273

E-mail: wgc@ican.net