The Stage

39 venues at risk as lockout looms on Broadway

Published Thursday 11 October 2007 at 13:35 by Judd Hollander

Broadway is bracing itself for a massive labour dispute, as contract negotiations between producers and backstage staff continue to fail to find a solution.

The League of American Theatres and Producers and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One, which represents Broadway stagehands, have been trying to hammer out a new contract since the previous contract expired last July, to no avail.

Insistent that negotiations be wrapped up by September 30, the League extended that deadline for several days, most recently meeting with the union on October 9, where they presented their “final offer”. Several hours later the union responded with their own final offer, but neither alternative was acceptable to both sides. Currently, no new talks have been scheduled.

The chief sticking point appears to be work rules, specifically such jobs as “load-ins” periods (often running several days or weeks) when a new show moves its props, scenery, costumes, lighting, etc. into a theatre. The old contract designated how many members must be hired for load-in and how many hours a day they are to be paid, regardless of how long the process takes. The League wants to be able to decide how many people they need to hire for load-in and pay them only for the time they work. The union, citing job security and the enormous profit Broadway makes each year, wants to keep the current rules in place.

If no new deal is struck soon, the League could bar members of the union from working via a “lockout”. This would shut down almost all of the 39 Broadway venues. Theatres owned by non-profit groups on Broadway operate under a different contract and would not be affected. Nor would Disney’s New Amsterdam Theatre (home of Mary Poppins) or the Hilton Theatre (Home of Young Frankenstein), as neither location is in a League theatre.

The League is particularly determined any work-stoppage happen sooner rather than later, in order to avoid a shutdown carrying over into the lucrative holiday season, which runs from the middle of November through New Year’s Day. The League is also betting such a stoppage would not last long, though the union supposedly has a strike fund in place just in case. The fund contains between $15 and $20 million, according to Variety.

In a statement released on the evening of October 9, Charlotte St Martin, executive director of the League said: “The League seeks a contract that requires that we only pay for work we actually need and is actually performed. The League’s purpose is to modernise a contract that is unique in the extent to which it requires us to employ people who have no work to perform while they are paid.”

The League’s final offer, according to the release, calls for an overall 16% wage increase over a five-year period, an additional 10% increase during load-in times, a new sick pay provision and “more than a dozen other contracts sought by the union”. St Martin also noted that “with only one in five shows making a profit,” the current union position is “simply unacceptable”.

In response to the League’s offer, James J Claffey Jr, president of Local One, said: “The union addressed nearly every item on the producers’ list and offered imaginative solutions that met the producers’ requests. What the producers failed to do was recognise our suggestions with exchanges of its own. What they failed to understand is what I said publicly and privately in the last year - Local One is open to exchanges on work rules and other areas but would not make a concessionary agreement of any kind. Local One will not accept cuts.”

When Local One responded to the League with its own final offer, the League, after turning it down, issued a statement which read in part, “[t]he Union gave us what they called its final offer, which made no progress on any of the issues we have identified as crucial to these negotiations. In fact, the Union’s offer has made the situation worse for all productions, particularly dramatic productions.”

A check of Local One’s website revealed a notice urging any potentially affected members to contact their office “for any and all updates concerning a possible lockout on Broadway”.