#bardel

jack:sometimes, my mom just disappears and i never see her again, and now i have trust issues because the one father figer i trusted turned out to be traitor, and the secend father figer ended up dieing. the only thing that makes me happy is my friends and they are the only family i have, so i have a constant fear of them hating me or dieing.

If you live in British Columbia, please consider signing this petition.  The "High Technology Professional Exclusion" is a policy created in the early 2000s during the Dot Com boom, when people were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in tech startups. It was originally intended to cap unreasonable overtime wages due to this special new expertise and help smaller companies remain competitive with giants who could spend whatever they needed to bring their company into the tech age. However, some time later, this exemption was incorrectly applied to the artists, who are not high tech workers, in the Animation and VFX Industries.

For the past two decades, “high-technology professionals” and “high-technology companies” have been excluded from the hours of work, overtime and statutory-holiday provisions of the Employment Standards Act. Under employment standards, the maximum daily and weekly hours of work after which overtime rates must be paid are eight hours and 40 hours respectively. The HTP exclusion exempts “high tech workers” from these provisions, and means that they can be required to work longer hours without the benefit of overtime pay; however, in the animation industry, employers often use the HTP exclusion improperly and fail to compensate employees at all for overtime hours worked. Not even straight time pay - these hours go COMPLETELY unpaid. Often employers turn a blind eye to overtime hours worked, and either ignore the hours their employees are putting in or pretend they don’t know - whatever the reason, these hours are not recorded or accounted for in any official capacity, and therefore are not compensated.

It has not been well regulated or enforced, and ultimately at this point has just been used as a loophole to abuse artists and force sometimes excessive unpaid labour upon them. It’s time for that to change. 

Please stand with the artists who make your favourite shows in Vancouver who are tired of being abused and unpaid, who are tired of being taken advantage of, and due to being unable to sleep (because we’re up so late working unpaid overtime) who are just plain tired. Sign the petition now!

Examples of shows made in Vancouver:

Netflix Original: DreamWorks Dragons: Rescue Riders

Joining Brennley Brown (Leyla) as core lead are; Charlie Adler, Andre Robinson, Noah Kaye Bentely, Skai Jackson, Roshon Bernard Fegan, Nicolas Cantu, John C. Mcginley, Grey DeLisle, Zach Callison, Marsai Martin and more.

More information and an announcement soon to come. Follow the cast on Instagram and Twitter for further updates!