ACTRA, the union representing commercial actors in Canada, has launched a boycott of six brands it says are engaged in union busting by continuing to work with ad agencies that are locking out its members.

The boycott is targeting Canadian Tire, M&M Food Market, McDonald’s, Rogers, Walmart and H&R Block. All of the brands are clients of agencies on ACTRA’s list of shops it says are locking out performers by not acknowledging the NCA. Canadian Tire works with Publicis; H&R Block and Rogers are with Sid Lee, with Rogers-owned Fido working with Taxi; McDonald’s, M&M Food Market and Walmart are all clients of Cossette.

In an email, ACTRA confirmed the brands were targeted with the boycott because they continue to work with ad agencies it believes are locking out performers, and each of which have produced ads with non-union acting talent in recent months.

A page on ACTRA’s website listing the brands – which the union refers to as “scabvertisers” – encourages companies that would like to be removed from the boycott to tell their agencies to sign on to ACTRA’s National Commercial Agreement, or move its ad work to an agency that is already a signatory.

Eleanor Noble, ACTRA’s national president, said in a statement that the companies included in the boycott are “union-busting brands that put profits over people.”

Strategy has reached out to the brands listed in ACTRA’s boycott for comment, and will update this story once it is received. Thus far, only Rogers has responded, declining to comment for this story.

McDonald’s Canada, Rogers and Walmart Canada are also members of the Association of Canadian Advertisers. Though its members are not bound to the NCA’s terms, the ACA represents the marketing industry’s interests during negotiations with ACTRA as a co-administrator of the NCA.

“We are disappointed by ACTRA’s divisive and disruptive action as [the] industry attempts to work with ACTRA toward a simplified, modernized and competitive agreement,” Ron Lund, president and CEO of the ACA, said in a statement to strategy.

Since April 2022, ACTRA has alleged that the Institute of Canadian Agencies and its members have been engaged in a lockout of its 28,000 members by not signing on to a renewed National Commercial Agreement, which dictates how ad agencies are to engage unionized actors for commercial shoots. At issue is an “opt-out clause” that would allow signatories to engage ACTRA talent under the NCA if and when they pleased. ACTRA says this is a clear reduction in the scope of its collective bargaining rights, while the ICA has insisted this is necessary in order to “level the playing field” between its members and newer agencies that have been able to engage ACTRA talent using third-party signatories.

In its own statement, the ICA said it “deplores” what it described as an attempt to derail negotiations for a new NCA.

As members have continued to feel the pinch from lost income, ACTRA has taken increasing steps to pressure agencies into signing. Those have included staging protests outside of agency offices, as well as a push to get the Government of Canada to stop working with Cossette Media, which has been its media AOR since 2019.

Last May, ACTRA also filed a complaint with the Ontario Labour Relations Board, alleging that the ICA’s insistence on a term that would reduce collective bargaining rights amounted to bad faith bargaining. Hearings for that complaint resumed this month after the board decided in November to split the case in order to resolve a jurisdiction issue.

In addition to the ICA, Cossette, John St., Juniper Park/TBWA, Leo Burnett, McCann Canada, Ogilvy & Mather, Sid Lee, Taxi and Wunderman Thompson are all listed as respondents in the complaint.