ACTRA Gets Serious
by Staff Editors
(March 24, 2023 – Toronto, ON) (March 24, 2023) – The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the union representing professional performers who make commercials in Canada, has launched a national consumer boycott of union busting brands:
Canadian Tire
M&M Food Market
McDonald’s
Rogers
Walmart
H&R Block
“Enough is enough,” said Eleanor Noble, ACTRA National President. “Nearly a year ago, several ad agencies decided to lock out union performers after 60 years of success working under the National Commercial Agreement. ACTRA is launching a national consumer boycott of union-busting brands that put profits over people.”
Since April 26, 2022 the Institute of Canadian Agencies (ICA) declined to renew the National Commercial Agreement, a collective agreement that preserves the minimum rights and protections of performers in the commercial industry. The bargaining teams for the Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA) and the Association des agences de communication créative (A2C) and ACTRA have continued working together to preserve and stabilize the industry.
ACTRA is asking consumers and particularly other union members to take their business elsewhere while thousands of performers, precarious workers earning on average less than $6000 suffer.
ACTRA has also launched a campaign targeting the Government of Canada to demand it end its contractual arrangement with Cossette Media, one of the advertising agencies that has unjustly locked out ACTRA performers. In 2021 Cosette earned $137 million on federal advertising.
Nearly 600 Canadians have written their MP’s and Helena Jaczek, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, to demand she stop allowing a federal supplier to hire replacement workers while her government is promising anti-scab legislation.
“At a time when the government says it wants to protect precarious workers, it keeps paying an anti-union agency, prolonging this lockout,” said Marie Kelly, ACTRA National Executive Director and Lead Negotiator. “While Cossette is raking in profits, performers and their families are suffering. This union-busting attack on Canada’s unionized performers is shameful.”
The union’s complaint that Cossette and other agencies bargained in bad faith is currently before the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) is the national union of professional performers working in recorded media in Canada. ACTRA represents the interests of over 28,000 members across the country – the foundation of Canada’s highly acclaimed professional performing community.
SOURCE: ACTRA
Also see: How to Contact your Member of Parliament.
