Paul Siren
1917-2009

Paul Siren, one of the three Finnish Canadian recipients of the Order of Canada, died in Toronto on May 31st, 2009

Paul Siren was born in Alppila, Ontario near Port Arthur on July 19, 1917 to Severi Siren and Sophia Koistinen, immigrants from Finland, on the farm cleared from virgin forest by his father. Self-educated, he rose to prominence as a General Secretary of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA); during the course of his 20-year association with this body he molded it into a national union of professional performers and writers in the recorded media.In 1941, Paul took a job with McKinnon Industries in St. Catherines and during a strike, found himself elected chairman of the bargaining committee. Thus began a long and distinguished career to improve the welfare and rights of employees. Appointed the International Representative of the UAW in 1942, he served in that capacity and as Director of the Toronto area until 1960. From 1965 to 1985, he held the position of General Secretary of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) and until 1990, he represented ACTRA at meetings of the International Federation of Artists, of whose Executive Committee he was a member for eighteen years. Paul represented Canada at UNESCO to draft the UNESCO Recommendations on the Status of the Artist that were passed in 1980. In 1986, he co-chaired with Gratien Gélinas the Canadian task force on the Status of the Artist whose recommendations were approved in 1992 by the Parliament of Canada. A member of the Board of Governors of the Canadian Conference of the Arts from 1984, Paul served as President from 1988-1990. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Actra Fraternal Benefit Society that established a scholarship in his name in 1986. ACTRA awarded him a "Nellie" in 1985 for "best performance as a General Secretary"; in 1990, the Association of Cultural Executives presented him with the ACE Award; and in 1992, the Canadian Conference of the Arts honoured him with the Diplôme d'honneur. Paul was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 1987

The feature below about Paul Siren was written for Vapaa Sana in June 2008 by Lauri Toiviainen.

Paul Siren’s remarkable career in
defense of artists’ rights

Paul Siren, builder of Canadian Television and Radio Artists Union (ACTRA) 1964-86 had an active career in Canada on behalf of all performing artists, writers and broadcasters not only in Canada but internationally. As a young man, teenager actually, he was already heading Finnish socialist youth group. From there he rose to an influencial position with Canadian automobile workers labour movement, which at that time was part of so called international union meaning American controlled United Automobile Workers Union.
Siren was fired from the UAW 1959 after 18 years as International Representative because he did not feel it was the proper role of the UAW staff member to purge the union and its locals from the leftist elements as the American union bosses were demanding. Siren, himself a lifelong socialist, was member of the bargaining committee and was accused of consulting with the communists. The trial committee consisted of Americans, UAW officers from Detroit and their lawyer, with only one Canadian member. One of those charged was Cliff Pilkey of Oshawa who later became a NDP MPP and also president of Ontario Federation of Labour.
Pilkey and seven other Canadians were exonerated for lack of solid evidence but Siren was found guilty. He had earlier refused to go to the Toronto area locals to eliminate the leftist opposition.
This so called trial was conducted three years after the GM bargaining committee was supposed to be consulting with communists. The union had set an independent board in 1957 in order to give final possibility to appeal after arbitrary internal rulings like this. They called it Public Review Board. This board ruled in Paul’s favor in but he refused to return to his union position citing the circumstances.
Even in those heady days of the Cold War the Canadian governments were not trying to influence unions politically but let them settle their internal grievances by themselves. The U.S. was at helm of the world-wide anti-communist movement and most unions were following the government line. In 1960 both U.S. and Canadian UAW were more united than ever before and it took a long time until the Canadian locals revolted and formed their own auto workers union, the CAW.
Paul was in demand for his negotiating skills and expertise in collective bargaining techniques and became a self-employed labour negotiator and consultant in 1960. He had been with the UAW for 18 years.
He told in an interview to Vapaa Sana a couple of decades ago that it was financially the most prosperous time for him. Paul could pretty well set his own fees. He felt, however, that the personal success in his trade was not fulfilling. “I wanted to start building something within an organization.”

In 1964 he was lured into the Canadian Television and Radio Artists Union ACTRA, partly because of persuasion by family members and close friends and accepted a position of General Secretary of ACTRA.
Lawyer Bora Laskin of Paul’s hometown Thunder Bay, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada had been brought in to investigate charges made against ACTRA officers. This process prompted the board to hire a professional labour consultant. This union had been formed in 1943 but was in financial and political trouble at the time Paul Siren arrived the scene.
Most actors, broadcasters, singers, dancers and writers working for radio and television industry are members of this union. The status of an artist was then quite fuzzy, and the same can be said about his or her rights as an employee, his or her intellectual property, and the most laughable, job security. Actors use half of their time trying to find work. There is a big difference between the North American and the European artist community. The latter has been benefitting of much wider government support; there are more permanent job opportunities, more theatres, ballet and opera companies with regular casts.
Paul Siren worked hard on copyright issues and advanced the status of the artist, also internationally. He turned ACTRA around. Eventually it joined the Canadian Labor Congress and gained much more clout in contract negotiations with the owners of the TV and radio companies. He built alliances with the Writers Guild, researches and others and also defended Canadian artists’ rights for projects involving international productions in Canada.
Status of the Artist is a term describing a category of government legislation and programs which improve the economic and social status of professional artists.
Paul Siren was a pioneer who helped draft the 1980 UNESCO Recommendation on Status of the Artist.
In 1976 the UNESCO General Conference suggested that a worldwide study on the “status of the artist” be undertaken. This was followed, a year later, by a joint meeting of UNESCO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to consider artists‚ working conditions. Paul Siren chaired a Joint Committee of Experts, which worked on a draft recommendation for consideration by UNESCO member states. In 1980 Canada signed the Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artist (UNESCO Belgrade 1980). This international document, known as the Belgrade Recommendation ˆ something short of a convention ˆ committed Canada to improve the socio-economic position of creators in Canada. Its Guiding Principles include that the Member States should ensure, through appropriate legislative means when necessary, that artists have the freedom and the right to establish trade unions and professional organizations of their choosing and to become members of such organizations, if they so wish, and should make it possible for organizations representing artists to participate in the formulation of cultural policies and employment policies, including the professional training of artists, and in the determination of artists‚ conditions of work. Paul went then on to co-chair the Canadian government‚s Task Force on Status of the Artist, also called the Siren-Gelinas Report. This report, released in 1986 led to the passing of the federal Status of the Artist Act in 1992. “The need to recognize that artists have the same rights as other citizens, in the workplace and in society, has been the subject of discussion for at least 30 years in Canada, and has been debated for an even longer time in other countries around the world,” it stressed. Siren was also recognized as one of the main campaigners for Canadian content regulations in broadcasting.
Paul Siren received the highest civilian honour Canada has to offer to her distinguished citizens, Order of Canada medal, bestowed by Governor General Jeanne Sauve in the late eighties.

People are blinded by the news of million dollar contracts received of some artists. Most struggle and move from one financial crisis to another seeing an occasional good year but falling regularly into subsistence living. Some creators can negotiate successfully their own contracts but most can’t. An average dancer earned less than $26,000 in 2002, an actor about $32,000 and musicians and singers just $24,000. Writers were a bit better off with $42,000 a year but all these salaries pale compared with, let’s say the salaries of unionized auto assembly plant workers.
ACTRA magazine praises on the 60th anniversary of the association turned union Paul for his breadth of wisdom, adherence to fiscal responsibility, tirelessness and expertise in union movement and admits he was the force that built ACTRA into one of the best known unions in Canada.

by Lauri Toiviainen