Actors & Producers Reach Tentative Deal To End Strike
Posted February 17, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A six-week strike by unionized actors may be reaching an end with word the performers’ union and producers have reached a tentative deal.
But along with the good news comes the bad as some industry insiders believe the damage done by the walkout will be irreversible.
Ontario members of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) began striking on Jan. 8 over concerns about actors’ pay for new media productions, including broadcasts intended for the Internet and mobile phones.
Eric Peterson, Colin Mochrie and Wendy Crewson are among the Canadian performers who led the campaign. They claim it’s not fair that actors should be asked to work for free on new media projects for television shows and films.
The tentative deal worked out Friday provides unionized actors with a 10 percent wage increase over three years plus residuals on Internet use.
ACTRA represents 21,000 members across the country and made sure that certain popular Canadian productions weren’t affected by the strike by signing deals with individual producers.
The actor walkout threatened to bring down Canada’s film industry and while news of an agreement is welcome Paul Bronfman, the president of a leading Canadian film services and equipment company, says serious damage has already been done.
“The fact that it went on for six weeks is ridiculous, and now the challenge is to undo the very serious damage that’s been done,” Bronfman, president and CEO of Comweb Group, said.
“It’s going to take several weeks, if not months, to get things back on track. Production is not going to start flowing back here immediately.”
Producers also say the strike hurt future business for Canada, that American productions that could’ve been shot north of the divide may have chosen new locations because of the labour dispute.
Toronto lost at least two feature films and as much as $400 million in lost production. The Canadian film industry has been struggling since the SARS outbreak and the strength of the Loonie isn’t doing much to attract U.S. productions.
