Headline, Industry News

Canadian actors throw support behind SAG

The Canadian union representing more than 21,000 English-language actors will stand behind the U.S. Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in the event it calls a strike vote.

The U.S. union, which represents 120,000 members, announced last week it would contact its membership in coming days with an “education” campaign, followed by a request for a strike vote authorization.

Stephen Waddell, national executive director of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), said the decision to support SAG comes at a difficult time for Canadian artists.

“ACTRA will support the Screen Actors Guild to the greatest extent that we can. There is no other alternative for us. We are a trade union and we support our brothers and sisters,” Waddell said.

That includes directing members not to work for any “struck” U.S. production that attempts to come north of the border to evade the U.S. guild’s jurisdiction.

SAG’s contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended on June 30. Talks broke off last week, despite the intervention of a federal mediator.

The U.S. producers publicly blasted SAG for seeking a strike vote “at a time of historic economic crisis.”

Waddell said the dispute is bad news on both sides of the border.

“The whole situation is unfortunate. The fact that this has been going on for so long means … there’s virtually no U.S. production shooting in Canada, which is a significant problem for our members,” Waddell said.

In recent years, ACTRA members have benefited greatly from U.S. productions coming to Canada. But Waddell said standard fare — such as movies of the week, independent films and U.S. TV series work — has dried up in the past year.

Last November, the Writers Guild of America strike, which lasted 100 days until an agreement was reached in February, resulted in a dramatic drop-off in U.S. film and TV production in Canada.

“Our members are hurting, as is the production community generally. Producers, technicians, we’re all being hurt by the lack of U.S. production in Canada,” said Waddell, who recently met with studio executives in L.A. to discuss the crisis.

Waddell said there are limits on what ACTRA can do to discourage or prevent its members from taking work shipped north of the border.

ACTRA has agreements with hundreds of Canadian production companies, almost all of them doing Canadian film and TV work.

While U.S. producers who are not signatories to the ACTRA agreement would be frozen out, it would be difficult to prevent ACTRA members from working for Canadian companies that land contracts for U.S. productions, Waddell said.

Source: Bruce DeMara, The Toronto Star