Historic of the local 262

The International alliance of theatrical stage employees, moving picture technicians, artists and allied crafts, local section 262, was born in 1912 in Montreal.

We were then a union regrouping essentially projectionists in movie theatres, which were then called <animated pictures machine operators>.  In 1994 we decided to be proactive and to proceed with important organization campaigns with front of house employees. Employees of Cineplex Odeon theatres joined us and we were able to obtain a first collective agreement for some 200 new members.

In 1999, office employees joined our union for the first time in its history. The workforce of the APVQ (Association des Professionels en video du Quebec) chose IATSE to represent them and to negotiated their first collective agreement. Unfortunately, the merger between the APVQ and the STCVQ, which was to lead to the creation of AQTIS, ended this process we had started because the STCVQ already had a great number of employees which were already represented by a union and had been for numerous years. However we continued on this route and between 2002 and 2007 we represented and tried to organized diverse crafts related to the industry of film shooting and cinema postproduction. The creation in 2005 of Local 514, solely devoted to this jurisdiction, put an end to our involvement in this specific sphere but we still have contributed grandly to bring these workers to turn to the IATSE in Quebec. In 2008 Local 262 obtained, via an agreement with the local 523, the representation of the front of house staff of the region of Quebec. This jurisdiction was then officially granted by the International in 2010. Thus the local 262 was now representing employees in Montreal as well as 200 new members in Quebec. In 2011 the overwhelming arrival of digital technology meant the end of the craft of projectionist in Quebec, with a few exceptions. IMAX members will also be terminated in 2017 as technology changes it there to. It definitely marked the end of an era. In 2012, the local was celebrating its centenary – which makes it one of the oldest Local section in Quebec, all unions mingled, and the second oldest IATSE section in the province after Local 56. Another noteworthy fact is that in 2019 we celebrated 25 years of unionizing Front of house staff in cinemas which is quite a unique phenomenon in North America.

The years 2010’s brought yet more diversity to the local as we were able to expand and represent employees of live theatres such as the Centre Pierre-Peladeau as well as the more general field of entertainment with the employees of the Boutique des Canadiens de Montreal. The unionizing of the cinemas also continued with new Cineplex units, adding more than 300 members since 2012. Local 262 now represents the majority of employees working for Cineplex theatres in the province of Quebec and 800 members in front of house positions in Quebec.

This confirms our increasing presence in the industry of culture and entertainment and our strong will to diversify our presence in the arts and culture industry in Quebec.

We have obtained better working conditions in the industry of theatre exploitation and we continue our development in order to better the working conditions of the employees of precarious and part time jobs, no matter where they work in the cultural industries of Quebec.