Un-scene: Vancouver film workers finding gig work to sustain themselves

It has been over 100 days since strike action commenced by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), and Vancouver film industry workers are feeling the burn.

Because so many productions have come to a halt, many who depend on those productions for their livelihoods are being forced to turn to gig work.

On Friday, August 25, a rally was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery, with some of those film workers and union representatives voicing their concerns about the ongoing strike.

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We connected with Ellie Harvie, president of the Union of BC Performers and Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (UBCP/ACTRA), who said that productions have essentially reached a standstill.

“Roughly, we usually have about 50 productions this time of year. There are six right now.”

With just six productions ongoing and the union representing around 60,000 workers in the province, that leaves a considerable gap in employment.

“If our jobs are down 90%, there’s some math there.”

People are scraping by to try and make ends meet, according to Harvie.

“Some people are waiting on tables,” she said.

Ellie added that others are turning to companies like Uber Eats and Lyft to find any work they can.

Regarding when things might let up, because there’s a media blackout surrounding the SAG-AFTRA negotiations, it’s hard to tell.

“It’s really the studios that are the ones in charge of this. And so we need the studios who are extremely successful to actually pay fairly their creatives.”

UBCP members have also been locked out of the commercial realm for 16 months regarding a separate agreement and protested companies like Canadian Tire and Wendy’s earlier this week.

Those companies are using advertising companies that won’t use UBCP workers “because they don’t want to pay us what they’ve been paying us for the last 60 years.”