Variety: Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents stage actors and stage managers, has reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract with the Broadway League, the trade association of theater producers and presenters.
That’s news that comes ahead of schedule: The current contract isn’t due to expire for another month. The quickie resolution suggests a relatively quiet, controversy-free negotiation process, as opposed to the down-to-wire back-and-forth that sometimes occurs.
2 comments:
It’s relieving to hear that the negotiations went smoothly and without much trouble. It does make me wonder why the agreement came early and that something possibly could have been missed or another issue could arise. What was most interesting about this article was how it mentioned the stagehands strike of 2007. I had never even heard of the strike and I was interested by some of the details of the event. I was astonished by the fact that the strike cost the city $17 million in revenue. This just shows how important the workers and unions are in the production of shows in New York City. A strike can truly bring the theatre scene in New York City to an absolute halt and crush the tourism industry. This once again reinforces the weight that unions can carry when effective. I’m happy though it looks like this will be avoided with the new contract.
I would agree that it is very nice to hear of labor and contract negotiations going smoothly and relatively quietly. It seems that the general public’s support of unions has been slowly fading away, not necessarily to opposition but to indifference. There seems to be this stigma that the majority of teamsters and unions are already well compensated and taken care of, and that unions come with a level of bureaucracy that gets in the way of efficient work. Though I would tend to agree that union breaks could be arduous to levels of efficiency, there are a slew of positive outcomes stemming from unionization. With this year’s Labor Day weekend in full swing, it’s nice to take a break and think about the necessity of unions, and the positive outcomes that follow their efforts. The ease of these negotiations hopefully points to a resurgence of trust amongst unions and their powers.
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