MONTREAL – With its current contract expiring on New Year’s Eve, actors and producers started talking again this week.
"We told them again today that our members will not accept their rollback proposals," said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, in a release.
"The producers – including some of the world’s biggest multinational studios – have not and cannot show that the main production companies at the table are in financial trouble, that this trouble is because of our agreement, and that rolling back the pay of performers is what is required to put them back in the black."
ACTRA, the actors’ union, also rejected proposals from producers to get digital media rights for free and to gut performers’ residuals on all productions.
"Our members approved strike votes by over 95% twice in the 1990s to win their current residuals," Waddell said, in what seems to be a warning. "These retrograde digital media and residuals proposals are going to attract an even bigger strike vote on December 15 of this year unless it is withdrawn."
ACTRA says it wants:
* A reasonable increase for all members under this contract.
* A move to parity with Screen Actors Guild (SAG) on high-budget U.S. productions in steps over the next five years.
* Improvements to protections for minors on film productions.
* An incremental improvement to hours of work.
* Measures to promote opportunities for performers with disabilities.
Producers did not respond to ACTRA’s proposals in discussions, says the ACTRA release. Producers and ACTRA have scheduled negotiations throughout December and ACTRA members are currently voting on a strike mandate, with results expected on or about December 15.
Click here and here for some background on this fall’s ongoing battle.
