Vancouver: Despite efforts to quell ongoing union strife in b.c., labor representatives were back at the Labour Relations Board Nov. 10 to argue over who gets to run crews at The New Addams Family series.

Market-dominating IATSE Local 891 and its Council of Film Unions partner Teamsters Local 155 joined efforts to try and usurp ACFC West from the low-budget, Fox Family Channel show, which has to date completed half of the scheduled 65 episodes. The iatse/Teamsters application seeks to certify workers on the set even though there is already a collective agreement between ACFC West and Shavick Entertainment (and by extension AFS Productions, which produces Addams Family).

Connor O’Sullivan, business agent for ACFC West, claims the bigger unions are back on the attack and intent on ‘putting us out of business. We’re back to union wars.’ He speculates that the Council is testing the strength of the recent merger between the 500-member acfc and cep, a partnership forged in part to fend off such attacks.

But Tom Milne, secretary treasurer of Teamsters 155, denies the application is a bid to oust acfc, even though he says the smaller union is better off going away. He claims the application to certify Addams Family crew is a response to calls to his office that standards and pay rates on set are low.

Similar union squabbling had dominated Vancouver-based production for years before the lrb granted in 1996 the Council of Film Unions – iatse, Teamsters and IATSE Local 669 – exclusivity for larger-budget shows. That decision created an increased sense of labor stability for skittish producers who had begun to take business elsewhere.

The exclusivity, however, carved out a niche at the lower end of the market, where the cheaper acfc has thrived since and where the Council has struggled to make inroads.

The Council’s low-budget master for Paramount and Warner Bros. recently failed with members and the low-budget B.C. Producers Agreement has been slow in getting to a members vote.

Whether or not the new dispute over jurisdiction is about squashing acfc or rescuing union brothers, the political maneuvering has delayed a final decision about the application by iatse/Teamsters until early next month.

At issue, for example, is the size of the bargaining unit. The iatse/Teamsters application increases the size of the bargaining unit currently in place at Addams Family. acfc has filed a counter certification bid – to be heard Nov. 17 – to increase the size of its bargaining unit.

The iatse/Teamsters group, meanwhile, is claiming confusion about which employer is attached to the acfc contract: is it long-term service producer and acfc employer Shavick, or afs, the shelf company created by Fox Family and Shavick to operate the series?

On Nov. 13, acfc was to file an undisclosed unfair labor practice complaint against the employer, a move that would further complicate the application.

And by the end of the week of Nov. 16, 90 crew members on set were to vote on which union they’d prefer, the results of which were to be sealed until after the parties tried to resolve the dispute at the lrb.

Shawn Williamson, president of Shavick, says there is concern about the outcome of the application, but that presently there are no holds or delays on productions. If the iatse/ Teamsters group is successful, says Williamson, ‘our clients have expressed concern about how that will affect our budgets.’

Milne predicts that if the iatse/Teamsters application is, indeed, successful that the group would attempt to convert other Shavick shows and turn attention to ACFC West crews working on Baton series Cold Squad and series produced through Vidatron Entertainment.

‘They are working in our jurisdiction,’ he says. ‘Why shouldn’t they be working under the Council?’