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Broadway shows may be brought to a halt by union lockout

Published Friday 28 September 2007 at 12:00 by Judd Hollander

As New York’s 2007/8 theatre season gets ready to begin in earnest, with 12 shows due to open on Broadway by the end of November, the Great White Way is facing the possibility of an almost complete shutdown.

Negotiations are coming down to the wire between the League of American Theatre and Producers and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One, which represents Broadway stagehands.

While both sides are keeping quiet on negotiations, the major stumbling block appears to be work rules regarding how many stagehands are hired for specific jobs and for how long - for example on get-ins or ‘load-ins’ as they are known in the US. Load-ins are defined as the period when a new show moves all of its equipment into the theatre.

The League, in an effort to keep costs down, wants to have more flexibility with this arrangement. However, the union, citing job security and the continual record-breaking profits the League keeps touting in their press releases, wants to keep the current agreement in place.

According to several sources, League plans to deliver its final offer to Local One on or around October 1. If no agreement is reached or looks to be within reach, the League may consider a ‘lockout’ of the union, which would effectively bring almost all Broadway shows to a halt.

The League would prefer a lockout to a strike (where the union walks out) for a number of reasons, chiefly because the League does not want a work stoppage to occur during the holiday season, which starts at the end of November. This way, the League would force the issue earlier rather than later and hopes to end it long before the busy period on Broadway begins.

The last time there was a strike on Broadway was in 2003 when the musicians’ union walked out for four days, costing the industry millions of dollar in lost ticket sales. The stagehand strike differs in that it would affect both plays and musicals. However, theatres operated by non-profit groups, who are under a different contact, would remain open. Also staying open would be Disney’s New Amsterdam Theatre, currently the home of Mary Poppins, and the Hilton Theatre, home to incoming Young Frankenstein, neither venue being a League Theatre.

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