The Stage

Broadway’s backstage union votes unanimously for potential strike action

Published Monday 22 October 2007 at 12:00 by Judd Hollander

Broadway’s backstage union - Local One of The International Alliance of Stage and Theatrical Employees - has unanimously voted to allow its members to call a strike.

A strike would effectively shut down all but a handful of Broadway theatres.

The union, whose previous agreement with the League of American Theatres and Producers expired back in July, has reached an impasse over negotiations for a new contract, the chief sticking point being work rules. The producers, who consider many of the rules antiquated, want significantly more flexibility in this area.

Local One, citing the enormous profits Broadway makes, especially through such sources as touring rights and merchandise sales, is determined to keep them intact.

Members of Local One voted on October 22 to authorise their leaders to call a strike over the matter (the League and the union exchanged “final offers” on October 9 with no official negotiations since-and none currently scheduled).

Additionally, another vote (also unanimous) allocates $1million to aid any other theatrical union who might be financially affected by the strike. Local One, according to a press release has $5.1million in reserve to weather any work stoppage. It also claims to be ready to move any striking members into jobs in other area of the union’s jurisdiction (such as television work and hotel trade shows) to keep them employed during a Broadway shutdown.

“No work in December without a deal,” Local One President James J Claffey Jr said to his members, leading many to suspect (as has been the prevailing thinking on Broadway) that any work stoppage will occur towards the end of November, which is the beginning of the holiday season and traditionally the busiest period on Broadway.

Responding to Local One’s announcement of the strike vote, League executive director Charlotte St Martin said, “As it has done twice during the two most recent negotiations, Local One has threatened to strike during the busy holiday season when the harm would be most severe - hurting theatergoers, tourists from around the world, hard working waiters, cab drivers, hotel workers and others who rely on the industry to make a living, the city’s economy, and most of all, the actors, musicians and other employees of Broadway.”

While both sides are making noises about a work stoppage, neither seems to want to be the one that actually causes a shutdown. The League, which reportedly has a fund of about $20million to help get its members through a strike, originally wanted to settle the matter quickly (thus not having the holiday season affected) and was talking about locking out the union in the beginning of October if no contract was reached. However the League backed away from that position, issuing several statements stressing their commitment to keeping Broadway open.

As for the union, while they are certainly not ruling out a strike, they have also promised to announce any such action far enough ahead of time so as not to “blind side Broadway theatergoers.” Local One has also told their members to report to work as usual on Monday despite the fact that this will be the day the League begins to implement new work rules from the final contract offer it made to the union.

On October 21, the League issued an 11-page summary of its final offer, noting the various changes which would be implemented the next day. These include alterations to electrician’s duties, the staffing of the show running crew, overtime hiring requirements, meal periods, rehearsals and work calls and stagehands duties in cases of cancelled performances, among others things.

The League also released a list of its contract demands that it dropped due to union’s objections, as well as various demands from both sides which were agreed to, along with the ones that were not accepted.

For now at least, the League will not be implementing new rules on the question of worker use during show load-in periods, a major stumbling block in the negotiations.

Both Local One and the League have been calling for the other to return to the bargaining table, something at this point neither is willing to do. The last time there was a strike on Broadway (for four days in 2003 by the musicians’ union) the impasse was resolved by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg getting the musicians’ union and the League back to the bargaining table. But when Mayor Bloomberg contacted Local One with an offer to help end the stalemate, the union declined his help, saying they would negotiate their own contract.