Directors Guild Of Canada BC Contract Talks To Resume April 25 In Last-Ditch Effort To Avert Strike

deadline.com:

Negotiations to avert a threatened film and TV strike in British Columbia by the Directors Guild of Canada B.C. will resume April 25.

The resumption of contract talks comes in the wake of the guild’s first-ever strike authorization vote, which was approved last week by an overwhelming majority – 92.2% of its 1,700 members.“Our goal is to reach a fair agreement,” DGC BC executive director Kendrie Upton told her members recently. “We all care about this industry, so let’s roll up our sleeves, get back to the table and find a solution.”Guild leaders told their members before the vote that it “doesn’t mean we immediately go on strike.

It gives our negotiating team a strong mandate and empowers us to serve strike notice if the negotiating producers refuse to respond to your legitimate concerns…Our ultimate goal has always been to get an agreement that the membership can ratify, and that hasn’t changed.”The guild has been negotiating on and off for over a year with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and the Canadian Media Producers Association, a trade association for independent producers.

Prior to the strike authorization vote, they warned that labor instability in the region could force producers to think twice about filming there.“The DGC BC’s strike-authorization vote sends a message of labor uncertainty in the province and seriously jeopardizes British Columbia’s reputation as an attractive location for motion picture production.