Highlights of the Collective Agreement between Cineflix and the Factual Television Joint Council

In advance of negotiating with Cineflix, a survey was sent to hundreds of workers in the factual industry and several focus groups were held to establish what our priorities would be. These priorities were then compiled and transformed into proposals.

For this collective agreement to become official, first Cineflix needs to decide to accept the collective agreement as part of the class action settlement. If they do so, workers at Cineflix will then have an opportunity to vote in favour of ratifying the agreement. If it is ratified by Cineflix workers in it would be the first-ever contract in the factual TV industry in Canada! The ratification vote would likely take place sometime in 2022.

In preparation for the ratification vote, we have provided you with a summary of the agreement below:

Pay

• Transparent wage minimums for all positions, with opportunity to negotiate higher individual rates (overscale)
• Establishing a standard work day (10 hours for off-set production work; 12 hours for on-set crew) with overtime provisions paid at 1.5 times regular rate
  
• Pay for statutory holidays, with guaranteed 1.5 times regular rate for work on statutory holidays
• Pay for travel days
• Pay for hiatus and work cancellation
• Health and Welfare and Retirement Benefits contributions made by the employer on your behalf

Work/Life Balance

• Standard work week of 5 consecutive days
• Overtime at 1.5 times regular rate for work on the 6^th and 7^th day
• Rest time between shifts and work weeks, with pay at 2 times regular rate for work in set rest period
• Meal breaks enforced by meal penalty pay after set number of hours
• Option for time off in lieu instead of money for overtime and statutory holidays
• Guarantee of minimum 4 hours’ pay per day, no matter the length of day

Health and Safety

• Access to sick leave
• Union health and safety representatives on productions
• Everyone covered by WSIB or Worksafe BC in case of injury on job
• Joint company-union health and safety committee
• Hotel accommodation for work requiring long hours outside home zone

Support from union

• Access to union representation at work locations
• Clearly established process for settling disputes or complaints

General

• 3-year deal applies to all productions within and related to Cineflix
• Everyone is covered: employees, individual contractors, corporate loan-outs

If ratified, this groundbreaking collective agreement will be a significant step in creating fairness in factual TV!

If you want to get involved in the ratification vote please fill out this confidential form.

If you have further questions, please contact factualtv@cwacanada.ca