TORONTO – Canadian actors union ACTRA has already applied for labour mediation, just one day into contract talks with Canadian film and TV producers.
"Canadian producers told revered Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent and all Canadian performers that they deserve a 25% pay cut, no residuals and worse working conditions," says the press release.
So Pinsent, at the front table of ACTRA’s bargaining team, took his revered-ness and walked out yesterday.
Less than two days of negotiations with Canadian producers highlighted the need for a neutral third party to assist the talks.
"We put forward a reasonable set of proposals in these negotiations," said Richard Hardacre, national president of ACTRA, in their press release.
"What we got back from producers was proposals to roll back our pay by 10 to 25%, a proposal to gut our residuals, proposals to make working conditions much worse and numerous other unacceptable proposals."
The English and French producers fired something of a shot across the bow last Friday when it warned ACTRA that media times have changed and so must the next collective agreement.
The parties are so far apart, says ACTRA, that it "concluded the negotiations are going to need help to get to a new agreement," says the release.
The current agreement expires on December 31, 2006.
