ACTRA

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**ACTRA**

Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
Founded	1940s
Members	18,000
Country	Canada
Office location	Toronto, Ontario
Website	www.actra.ca

ACTRA is a Canadian organization representing performers in English-language media. It has 18,000 members working in film, television, radio, and all other recorded media.

The organization negotiates, safeguards, and promotes the professional rights of its members. It also works to increase work opportunities for its members and lobbies for policy changes at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

ACTRA is affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress and the International Federation of Actors.

In July, 2005, ACTRA and the United Steelworkers announced that the two unions have entered into a strategic alliance to take on the globalization of the culture industry and to address a range of common issues.^[1]

[edit] What the acronym means

The earliest form of the organization represented radio performers in Toronto in the 1940s. This organization was called RATS: the Radio Artists of Toronto Society. In 1943, with wider involvement of groups from other Canadian cities, the Association of Canadian Radio Artists (ACRA) was formed.

ACRA over time evolved into the Association of Canadian Radio and Television Artists, the Canadian Council of Authors and Artists, the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists and, in 1984, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

Currently, the acronym alone is used to identify the organization and ACTRA is never spelled out.

[edit] See also

Screen Actors Guild (SAG) - similar U.S. organization for motion picture actors
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) - similar U.S. organization for television and radio actors