While B.C. film and TV directors are very much accustomed to casting actors, they’re now in the midst of casting ballots to determine if they should go on strike as voting wraps Thursday.
A spokeswoman for the Directors Guild of Canada, B.C. District Council (DGC BC), told BIV it’s not yet known when results of the vote for a strike mandate will be revealed. Voting began Wednesday and ends Thursday at 5 p.m.
The province’s film industry was worth close to $3 billion to the economy in the 2019-20 fiscal year, according to a report released last May from the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), one of the employers at the negotiating table with the guild.
Negotiations have been going on more than a year, including mediation conducted with help from the province’s Labour Relations Board (LRB).
Both the guild and employers are blaming the other for the breakdown following recommendations from the LRB’s mediator.
Allan Harmon, district council chairman for DGC BC, said the employers’ bargaining team has been unwilling to engage with the guild over what it considers to be the most important issues and has “kept demanding more and more claw-backs throughout the process.”
DGC BC said those issues include retroactive wage hikes going back to the expiry of the last collective agreement, payment terms for COVID-19 testing and pay differentials that would increase wages for lower-paid positions as the minimum wage goes up across the province.
The DGC BC collective agreement covers directors, second unit directors, production and unit managers, and those working in the assistant director and locations departments.
The CMPA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said in a joint statement they had made a comprehensive offer to the guild to address concerns over wages, benefits and residual payments.
“After being so close to reaching an agreement, the DGC BC then made additional demands and the opportunity for settlement evaporated,” the employers’ statement said.
“Considering the potential for labour instability in British Columbia, companies represented by the AMPTP and CMPA may be forced to re-evaluate their plans for basing new productions in the province.”
