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Broadway Lights Back on After Striking Stagehands Reach Tentative Agreement |
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The lights are on again on Broadway. After two days of marathon negotiations, striking members of the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 1 last night reached a tentative agreement with Broadway producers. Most of the shows that had been shut down during the two-week strike will resume performances tonight.
Details of the new five-year deal with the League of American Theatres and Producers were not released pending approval of the union members.
Bruce Cohen, a spokesman for the union, says:
We’re glad there’s a deal, and everyone should go back to work and the public should go see a Broadway show.
Theater owners and producers in the billion-dollar-a-year industry were demanding a 38 percent cut in jobs and wages, according to IATSE. About a quarter of the 2,200 members of Local 1, who build scenery, maintain props and install and operate lighting and sound equipment, work in Broadway theaters. Entertainment unions strongly backed IATSE members, including Actors’ Equity, American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) Local 802 and the New York City Central Labor Council (NYCLC).
This is the second strike on Broadway in the past five years. Musicians walked out for four days in 2003.
1 Comment
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I certainly hope the IATSE brothers and sisters got a really good contract.
From personal experience, I know our IATSe brothers have a really difficult job. The work is physically hard, requires great skill and knowledge and can be potentially dangerous. Although not yet a member, I sometimes fill-in with the IATSE brothers and sisters in Delaware. Great folks!!!
I belong to other unions (NWU-UAW Local 1981) and OPEIU 277. I am an associate member of the USW. Like many other union supporters, I thought the mainstream media was very biased against the IATSE during the strike. Hopefully, union leaders everywhere will pressure media outlets to be more balanced and objective in the future.
The viewpoints of the workers were simply not reported. It was unfair!