B.C. Director’s Guild settles labour dispute with producers

TORONTO – A labour dispute that led to a halt on new film and television productions in British Columbia earlier this year has been resolved.

The B.C. branch of the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC BC) announced a tentative deal on Wednesday with its employers, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Canadian Media Producers Association.

“As of this afternoon, the DGC BC has reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP and the CMPA,“ the organization said in a statement.

“We are finalizing the language of the memorandum of agreement and will release further details as soon as that’s completed.”

In April, the DGC BC issued a strike notice following the guild’s first strike vote, in which members voted 92% in favour of a strike mandate.

The key issues in the negotiations included minimum wage differentials, payment terms for COVID-19 testing, and retroactivity of wage increases to the expiry of the last collective agreement.

At the time of the strike notice, those productions that were already underway were able to continue due to pre-existing safe harbour agreements between all parties.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2022.

SHARE: