The New Work Rules In Dispute In The Strike Talks- Page 2

[Dolly_Levi]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 10:11am

What all this goes to show, as already pointed out, is that Local 1 is a much more powerful union than AEA.

[roadmixer]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 11:50am

bugmenot - Absolutely. Well said! That seems to be the point that people are missing... that the League walked away from the table. Charlotte St. Martin needs to start taking responsibility for HER actions rather than continually harping on her sound bite saying that Local 1 will be responsible if Broadway goes dark. There can be no compromise, no 'bargaining' if one side walks away saying 'take it or leave it'.

[Neverandy]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 11:59am

I totally agree that the league has to come back to the bargaining table or this to be settled. It just seems, considering the way that they are using the press, that they are going to force the union's hand.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 12:22pm

The union had better think this out more carefully. If they strike in December, they may be out of work longer than they anticipate. January is the slowest month for Broadway and producers may just close certain shows for good.

[roadmixer]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 6:27pm

Gothampc - There are always more shows than empty theatres. It is unfortunate if shows that are not selling well at the moment are put in jeopardy but the league should have thought about that before they decided to try to force the union to capitulate to their cuts.

I hope that people get that this struggle is just a small slice of what has been going on for years in this country. In my Dad's generation CEOs and company owners made 4 times what their employees earn. Today they earn on average 256 times what their employees earn. Unless workers refuse to take rollbacks, cuts will come and that money will go straight into the pockets of the 4% of this country who hold 90% of the wealth. Call me a communist if you like for suggesting that the American Dream is a farce...

[whatever2]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 7:30pm

> While tax dollars don't pay salaries, labor unions are considered nonprofit organizations, so it could be said that taxpayers have to carry the tax burden for these organizations.

so what? the union is a non-profit, but the members arent ... our tax dollars arent paying any union members' SALARIES. we (taxpayers) dont "subsidize" the people whose wages are in dispute here ... we just "subsidize" the overhead of their organization -- in precisely the same way we "subsidize" the overhead of the non-profit League.

this is hyperbole -- the union exists, management exists. there is a dispute and it needs to be settled through reasoned dialogue, not through broadsides.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 8:31pm

"It is unfortunate if shows that are not selling well at the moment are put in jeopardy but the league should have thought about that before they decided to try to force the union to capitulate to their cuts."

Why should producers have to pay stagehands twice for the same hours? This is why tickets are over $100.

"Canceled Performances
Currently, when a scheduled performance of a show is canceled and replaced by a rehearsal or a work call, stagehands are required to be paid for both the canceled performance and the rehearsal/work call. The League will now not pay stagehands twice for the same hours. (The Union has rejected this proposal.)"

[roadmixer]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 8:59pm

Gothampc - Salaries have very little to do with today's ticket prices. Wages have barely kept pace with inflation (3.1% annual) and yet tickets have doubled in price over the past 15 years. Wages for union stage hands account for around 8% of the costs of doing shows. As for the clause below that you are citing regarding being paid twice... when does this ever happen? Can you come up with some examples of shows on Broadway canceling performances (NEVER HAPPENS!!)? If you can then perhaps you would have a point

[claudia2]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 9:11pm

Gothampc: If you don't know what you are talking about, please don't post. Shows are RARELY cancelled. The only time I remember that happening would be durning the first week of previews and you do not get paid for cancelled shows during the first week of performances. Also, there is NO featherbedding going on anymore. The Majority of stagehands work very hard. You can find one here or there who is lazy, but can you tell me a job where there isn't at least one lazy person? My husband is at the theater at 6:30 and doesn't leave the show until almost everyone is out of the theater. I dont think anything local one is asking for is unreasonable. There is room for give and take but nothing is unreasonable.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 9:17pm

Salaries have nothing to do with ticket prices. Boy is that an interesting idea

I guess escalating prices of sporting events have nothing to do with escalating player salaries. Silly me but I thought the fact that for a transit worker our money goes to pay salary,health benefits & pensions. Did I forget to mention that after the person leaves the employ of the MTA his medical benefits are still paid until they hit 65? Yeah this has nothing at all to do with fares going up

If they strike in December, the hit the city takes will be monumental & the theater going public (tourists especially) will remember it. Unions typically care not for who gets hurt by their actions.

The automakers found out late in the game that the benefits they bestowed on the UAW were no longer sustainable & were adding extra money to the price of a car. Hence the agreement reached by GM & Ford. The steelworkers in Pennsylvania & other areas killed the steel industry as management just got tired of never ending demands & moved manufacturing overseas.

Unions are good & needed but sometimes they push to hard & management (no angels themselves) push back. If a strike happens it will be long & ugly & will do long term damage.

If what I say irks you Just A Guy, I will know I did something right. You do not like me. I won't sleep tonight. I am going away for 5 days so I will not see your posts.

[roadmixer]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 9:50pm

Roxy - We are not discussing transit workers or baseball players. Clearly, the ticket prices on Broadway will not be lowered if and when the League manages to make these sweeping changes that they propose.

Keep in mind that Local 1 has not been 'pushing back' here. The union did not enter these negotiations reaching for more. They simply want to retain what they have had for years along with a small bump in wages to attempt to catch up with the rising prices in this city. As it is, many stagehands have had to move out of the city in order to afford housing and face commutes on the order of an hour or more. Stagehands are NOT by any means 'rich' by New York City standards.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 10:21pm

"Gothampc: If you don't know what you are talking about, please don't post."

I know exactly what I'm talking about. I used to be a stage manager and I still have friends in the business.

"My husband is at the theater at 6:30 and doesn't leave the show until almost everyone is out of the theater."

A 5 hour work day? Who else in America gets that?

"As it is, many stagehands have had to move out of the city in order to afford housing and face commutes on the order of an hour or more. Stagehands are NOT by any means 'rich' by New York City standards."

Welcome to the real world. That's also happened to secretaries and accountants and actors and waiters and waitresses. New York rent has gone through the roof because the demand is so high. Face it, everyone wants to live in Manhattan. The landlords know this and charge accordingly.

Updated On: 10/25/07 at 10:21 PM

[JustAGuy]

Posted: 10/25/07 at 11:19pm

"If what I say irks you Just A Guy, I will know I did something right. You do not like me. I won't sleep tonight. I am going away for 5 days so I will not see your posts."

Stupidity doesn't irk me Roxy, I just feel sorry for it.

[roadmixer]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 12:36am

Gotham - I KNOW that waiters, secretaries etc. etc. can't afford it here either and I do understand how the Manhattan real estate market works. Instead of begrudging our desire to have a job which CONTINUES to pay relatively decent money, let's try to help out everyone else who needs some support. Instead of hoping that the stagehands slide down to the level of the sad state of most of this city's jobs let's raise the bar. Let's not give up the fight for the middle class in this country.
Updated On: 10/26/07 at 12:36 AM

[One NYC StageHand]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 2:00am

Gotham. Lets do the math. 5 hours a show x 8 shows a week. I never got the new math but that seems to me to be right about 40 hours a week. Except it's generally 6 nights a week, no dinner with the kids and btw, that's holidays too.

As the new rules are put into place, the effect seems to be more of petulance than practicality. The guy who mops the stage has his salary reduced for an hour. Crews are being kept in the theatre until their call is over even if the curtain has been down for an hour and there is no work to be done. Maybe, on occasion, if everything works out, we can cut the preset crew. All this strum und drang over control issues?
This seems to be more about a philosophy than profits. Will IATSE and Equity and AFM and the other theatrical locals have a voice in their working conditions? The people who work in this business on a day to day basis have had a profitable relationship for many years. It would seem that the entertainment corporations and the part-timer investors need to assert themselves.
BTW, the Shubert Organization is wholly owned by The Shubert Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit private foundation.

[Copeman63]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 2:41am

As a TECHNICIAN, I can say that Local 1 is the rudest and nasiest union I've encoutered. You can accuse me of having a thin skin, but I don't see a signle fault in the producers requests... But I guess that means I should become a producer...

[JustAGuy]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 8:53am

"As a TECHNICIAN, I can say that Local 1 is the rudest and nasiest union I've encoutered. You can accuse me of having a thin skin, but I don't see a signle fault in the producers requests... But I guess that means I should become a producer..."

It might help your case if you site some examples of the rudeness and nastiness of the Local 1 members. I could say that producers are some of the rudest and nastiest people I've ever seen, but without anything to back it up, it's just words.

[Dolly_Levi]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 10:27am

Here's a specific one I don't understand ...

Overtime Hiring Requirements
Previously, if only a few stagehands were required to work overtime, Broadway producers were required to pay overtime to all of the stagehands that had been called that day. Producers will now pay overtime only to the stagehands required to work past a given call period. (The Union rejected this proposal.)

Why would the union think it makes sense to pay overtime to employees who didn't atually work overtime? Please advise me if I am misssing something.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 10:56am

"Except it's generally 6 nights a week, no dinner with the kids and btw, that's holidays too."

Tell it to nurses and doctors who work 12 hour shifts in the Emergency Room of any hospital. We choose jobs based on working conditions that we can handle. When I was heading toward a theater job, someone told me "Understand that you will have to work when everyone else is off." That's the nature of the business.

"Why would the union think it makes sense to pay overtime to employees who didn't atually work overtime? Please advise me if I am misssing something."

Dolly, that's the greed of unions. For years, they've been pulling this garbage. The musicians union always required more musicians than was necessary. If a musical only needed a 5 piece band, the union always demanded producers pay for more musicians. Musicians were paid and didn't even have to show up to the theater. Producers had to pay for a "curtain puller" even in shows that didn't have a curtain. And all the curtain puller had to do was push a button. When unions stop padding their personnel needs, maybe producers would be a bit more generous.

[don logan]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 11:38am

"The musicians union always required more musicians than was necessary. If a musical only needed a 5 piece band, the union always demanded producers pay for more musicians. Musicians were paid and didn't even have to show up to the theater."

Gotham: this is absolutely false. I am a pit musician and have been for years, and trust me, musicians do not get paid if they don't show up and play. Plus, who decides that a show only needs a 5 piece band? Yes, you can have synths playing string parts, brass, etc but it sounds like crap, and is that what you want to hear for $125 ?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 11:57am

"Gotham: this is absolutely false. I am a pit musician and have been for years, and trust me, musicians do not get paid if they don't show up and play. Plus, who decides that a show only needs a 5 piece band?"

I don't know what planet you play on, but on Broadway, the size of the theater determines how many musicians will be employed. (See link).

If Stephen Sondheim wanted to do a show with only two pianos and book into one of the bigger Broadway houses, the producers would have to hire 24 musicians who would get paid to sit around doing nothing.

"The dispute was over minimums, how many musicians are required for a Broadway orchestra. That figure is set by the size of the theater, with the largest houses currently requiring 24 to 26 musicians."
Link

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 12:11pm

Gotham, those minimums were all reduced during the last collective bargaining negotiation, with all but a couple of houses now having minimums under 20 (most well under 20). Also, there is now a Special Situations Committee now made up of non-union members where producers can now go and petition to have the minimum for any given theater lowered based on the individual needs of a show -- more often than not, the producers get their way. There are PLENTY of shows on Broadway now that make due with just 5 to 10 musicians in the pit.

Also, the practice of using "walkers" -- paid non-playing members of the orchestra employed just to make the minimum at a given theater -- was eliminated ages ago and according to some long-time members, it's been over a decade since the last one was employed.

Updated On: 10/26/07 at 12:11 PM

[don logan]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 12:12pm

Gotham: yes, that is how it works. But you probably also know about the "special situations " clause that was agreed upon to end the last strike, which the producers have been abusing ever since. The producers can request a smaller band if it is a "special situation" , and if the union disagrees it goes to a supposedly neutral arbitrator. There have been 3 or 4 musicals that the producers have won a smaller band. For example at All Shook Up the producers won a much smaller band than was the minimum, and string parts were covered by synths. Is that what you want for your $125?
What about musicians being paid for not showing up? That was my main point, and you didn't address it.

[don logan]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 12:13pm

Thank you Margot , I posted my reply before I saw yours

[Fosse76]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 12:24pm

"Tell it to nurses and doctors who work 12 hour shifts in the Emergency Room of any hospital. We choose jobs based on working conditions that we can handle. When I was heading toward a theater job, someone told me "Understand that you will have to work when everyone else is off." That's the nature of the business."

Umm, those nurses and doctors don't work six days a week...in fact, nurses on 12 hour shifts work three and four day weeks, and have ample time off. They also have options for additional shifts (i.e., overtime). These types of jobs are NOT comparable to the situation here.