ACTRA Toronto’s professional staff – stewards – ensures that individual productions comply with our agreements. Stewards regularly receive more than 50 voicemail messages a day in addition to direct calls, letters, meetings and on-set visits.

To ensure that your concern is handled properly, know the process. Stewards prioritize their actions on a daily basis according to the following guidelines:

• situations involving serious problems with personal safety, problems with unscripted nudity and/or sexually problematic scenes or situations involving abuse of child performers will be dealt with immediately by a steward. If you are calling about such a situation, insist that you talk to a live person.

• Working under the Independent Production Agreement (IPA): Your agent should be the first person who deals with situations involving upgrades, cancellations, postponements and other violations of the IPA. With upgrades, you must make production aware on set that your performance category should be upgraded. Should your agent not be able to resolve the situation or require assistance, your agent will contact the ACTRA Toronto steward for the production.

• Working under the National Commercial Agreement: Contact an ACTRA Toronto commercial steward for situations involving cancellations, upgrades, interpretations or agreement violations. Upgrades are rare and depend on the final edit of the commercial. If you genuinely feel your performance should be upgraded, contact a commercial steward and ask them to get a copy of the commercial.

Please remember that you must notify ACTRA about a breach of the IPA or the Commercial Agreement within 30 days of that breach in order to pursue restitution.

Be clear about the facts: Relate all relevant information clearly – including your name, ACTRA number, agent name, production name and location, date and time of the call and nature of the problem. The steward will not reveal your name to the production as the source of the complaint. Keep a written record of the call.

Problems and what to do:

Getting paid under the IPA: Your cheque is mailed to the address on your contract within 15 days from the day you work. If you don’t receive your cheque, and it hasn’t been received by your agent, have your agent call the production’s accountant to find out if it has been mailed. If your agent can’t resolve the problem, call the ACTRA Toronto steward responsible for your production right away. When you get your cheque, make sure the payment is correct. If it isn’t, have your agent call the production accountant. Notify the ACTRA Toronto steward as well.

Getting paid under the Commercial Agreement: Your cheque is mailed to ACTRA Toronto within 15 working days from the day you work, and then forwarded to you or your agent, as indicated in your membership record with ACTRA. If your cheque is late, or if the payment isn’t correct, contact ACTRA Toronto’s Commercial Department.

Signing out under the IPA: At the end of the day, make sure all information on your voucher or work report is completely and correctly filled out, including the times you worked, your meal breaks, etc. If you had an upgrade on set, mark it on your voucher or work report and get a contract for the upgrade. If you have a GST number, make sure it’s correctly written on your contract. If the items are incorrect, for a work report, do not initial it; for a voucher, check off “disagree.” In either case, notify your agent and the ACTRA Toronto steward. Keep a copy of your voucher – it’s your recorded proof of work. Keep a record of your time worked.

Signing out under the Commercial Agreement: At the end of the day, make sure all information on your contract is completely and correctly filled out, including the times you worked, your meal breaks, etc. If you had an upgrade on set, mark it on your contract. If you have a GST number, make sure it’s correctly written on your contract. If the items are incorrect, check off “disagree,” and notify a Commercial Department steward. Mail ACTRA’s copy of the contract and keep a copy for yourself – it’s your recorded proof of work.

Problems on set

If you see a performer-related problem on set that involves:

• working young performers more than eight hours a day (under 12 years old for the IPA; under 13 years old and without permission for the Commercial Agreement)
• unscheduled stunts or dangerous situations where stunt performers are not being used
• unscripted nudity or sexual situations not outlined in your contract

Call ACTRA Toronto immediately at (416) 928-2278.