Friday, August 28, 2009
Is now the best time for this?
PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE: "According to this New York Times article, Local 1 made a move on The Joyce Theater this week, in an attempt to organize and unionize the stagehands at the 472 seat theater in Chelsea."
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3 comments:
This is a valid point, but really fails to address so many aspects of the situation. Are the conditions for the workers at the theatre bad? Are the employees interested in the union or is the union trying to expand it's territory? Can the theatre afford the cost of running a union house? Are all the scary numbers about places closing and attendance going down actually leading to reduced income for the places that are surviving? They may be right, but the post raises more question than it answers.
I agree that there may be other matters at stake here, but I agree with the author of the article. I can't say I have a wealth of experience in the larger professional world of theatre, but I have a lot of experience in theatres that size, and I don't really think that the union is needed. Theatres of that size, especially with a resident dance company, can work well with stagehands who are not union quality. It can be a good place to break into the industry for younger people. Overall I think that now is not the right time for this switch, and the actual function of the theatre and the staff there needs to be assessed before the conversion takes place.
Jeez. This is completely ridiculous. I don't know how anyone in any industry could be thinking about unionizing in this economy. Especially in the arts we have to constantly be worried about a recession, as our industry will often be the first to go.
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