Film union must face race complaint despite pay adjustments

A film makeup artist’s racial-discrimination complaint against IATSE Local 891 will proceed to a hearing after the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal rejected the union’s bid to dismiss it, including its argument that some alleged exclusions from work caused no adverse impact because she was paid.

In Singh v. IATSE Local 891, 2026 BCHRT 191, issued September 9, 2026, tribunal member Andrew Robb found that Priya Singh’s allegations warranted a hearing under both the employment and union-membership provisions of the Human Rights Code. He did not find that discrimination had been proved.

Singh alleged that department heads on film productions repeatedly sent her home, or considered doing so, while non-racialized workers with lower priority under the collective agreement remained. She also challenged the handling of candidate statements for a union working-group election.

Workplace exclusion is not just a pay issue

The productions used both union members and non-members known as permittees. The parties agreed that the collective agreement gave union members priority for work and required permittees’ shifts to end first. Singh described five incidents between May and November 2022 in which she said that priority was not respected.

The union’s records generally supported the reported hours and work assignments. It acknowledged apparent collective-agreement violations in some incidents but said it learned of them after grievance deadlines had expired. For other incidents, it emphasized minimum-shift pay or payment for time Singh did not work.

Singh promptly complained about the November incident, and the union ensured she received as much pay as the permittees who stayed. It regarded that matter as resolved. The union said the department heads worked for the productions, not for the union, and disputed both racial discrimination and its own responsibility.

Robb distinguished financial loss from exclusion itself. A hearing could find an adverse impact when a racialized employee was sent away, or initially selected to leave, in favour of non-racialized permittees, even if wages were ultimately equalized. The repeated comparisons also took the alleged connection to race and colour beyond speculation for this preliminary stage.

The tribunal’s reference to less-qualified workers concerned their lower priority under the collective agreement. It was not a general assessment of the permittees’ artistic skill. Singh’s failure to insist more strongly on her contractual priority did not make the discrimination allegation incapable of success.

The union’s response requires a fuller record

Under section 27(1)(c), the union had to establish that the complaint had no reasonable prospect of success. The tribunal does not decide contested facts on that application. Singh still has to prove a protected characteristic, an adverse impact and the necessary connection at a hearing; the union may then seek to justify the impact.

A union can face an employment claim where it participates with an employer in a discriminatory practice, and a union-membership claim where its representation discriminates against a member. Robb did not rely on Singh’s separate suggestion that the union itself operated as her employer or a temporary employment agency.

The evidence raised a question about whether the union addressed the alleged racial exclusion, rather than wages alone. For the November incident, it did not identify steps to investigate that aspect of Singh’s report. Its own account of other incidents suggested that equal pay would have ended its concern even if she had reported them sooner.

Robb left for a hearing whether a union’s tacit acceptance of an employer’s discrimination could amount to participation in it. He also found a viable union-membership claim: on a full record, the tribunal could infer that the union’s approach to representation preferred protecting non-racialized members over addressing Singh’s allegations. Those were possible findings, not conclusions that the union had discriminated.

Candidate statements also remain in issue

The working group concerned the use of makeup to make performers appear to have a different ethnic background. Singh supplied a candidate statement, but the union later decided not to publish any statements. She said that prevented her from explaining lived experience relevant to the group and led her to withdraw from the election.

The union said some candidates had not provided statements and withholding all of them was fairest. It also said alternatives had been offered and that elected candidates came from varied racial and ethnic backgrounds. Robb found the record did not explain why publishing voluntarily supplied statements would have been unfair, or how the unspecified alternatives would have conveyed Singh’s experience.

The same rule for every candidate could still disadvantage candidates whose lived experience was particularly relevant to the group’s purpose. The tribunal allowed both the membership and employment aspects of that allegation to continue, but said Singh must establish at the hearing that participation in the group was employment or sufficiently connected to employment for section 13 to apply.

The union’s dismissal application was rejected in full. The decision ordered no compensation and set no election remedy. The complaint’s survival reflects issues requiring evidence at a hearing, not a ruling that every pay dispute or decision to withhold candidate statements is discriminatory.