Playbill: The Board of Directors is all that's left at the embattled Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, following the firing of the entire existing staff after their attempt to unionize with IATSE. The development is the latest outcome of ongoing struggles between the Tony-winning theatre's board of directors and its staff and artists. With this latest round of firings, the entire staff has either been fired or resigned.
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I had no idea that the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago was dealing with lots of racist claims and a staff attempt to unionize with IATSE, the theatre union. The fact that the board fired 18 staff members and left them seeking financial assistance at varying levels just this week is astonishing and alarming. I’m surprised this has not been more prevalent in the news because this seems to be a big deal in Chicago. Having basically no staff to run this theatre, I am curious to see what happens next for the Victory Gardens Theatre. This article also makes me wonder about the benefit of joining and being a union member for the IATSE when I start working in the industry. This article has brought to my attention how fragile this line of work is and how easily it is to lose your entire income in a blink of an eye.
This article does not specify whether or not all the employees were fired or whether they quit. It is in the employees best financial interest to be fired because they are able to pull unemployment at that point. If the staff was indeed fired and they can prove it was because of their attempt to unionize, the organization will fold. I’m impressed that there are literally zero employees and only the assets and board of directors remain. It sounds like the board of directors needed a wake up call and probably just needs to shut down for good for the sake of all the former and hopefully not future employees that were taken advantage of. I hope that they can mount a legal campaign against the company to make some money from the liquidated assets. It’s interesting to me as well that the artistic director and executive director were the first to go which sounds to me like it was so plagued that there was absolutely no chance for a recovery.
Well, that is embarrassing. They are off to a distinctly downhill start just with the headline of the article. "Remaining staff?" That can't be good for an organization. "Following Unionizing Attempt?" Sounds illegal to me. Like Owen pointed out, if they were fired for trying to unionize, Victory Gardens is probably in deeper waters than they already seem to be. The National Labor Relations Act protects people's rights to form, join, assist, or otherwise engage in union activities. Also, the fact that the entire group of resident artists resigned is very, very alarming. A playwright pulled the rights for her show. Plus, they fired their own artistic director, with the executive director resigning soon after. The only other time I've seen anything comparable to this was when the sound crew at Williamstown walked out, and it honestly is not even close to this level of fleeing the company.
Everything about this theatre seems to be problematic and a step away from the theatre community we are trying to create. It is a shame that this company decided to take these measures. I applaud those employees for trying to Unionize and for fighting so hard. The situation that these ex-employees in is so horrible, especially for the pregnant woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if this theatre ends up closing or losing out on money because of their views and how they treat their employees. I would not want to work at this theatre at all. Hopefully, the theatre world takes a look at this theatre and reflects deep in, realizing how we want to be as humans and as artists. I’m sure we will continue to see news about this theatre and its future. My heart goes out to the employees, I really hope they can get the money they need to keep living and have the resources to heal from this. -Hailey Garza
It's hard to believe - or at least, I find it hard to believe - that this theater would really rather replace its entire staff than let them unionize with IATSE. It's truly a shame about the employees that lost their jobs over such terrible circumstances, especially after fighting so hard to turn the problems around. This theater seems to have so many problems, though, that it seems leaving was probably in the best interest of the remaining staff. I hope that the former employees' GoFundMe campaign is successful, or at least that they are able to find some financial security for the near future. As for the theater, I would like to see some changes for the better within the board of directors and a turnaround in this series of events. At least, I hope that the theater doesn't start to rehire staff before or without addressing existing problems - if they do, I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen again.
I’ve been watching this play out since the resident artists walked out. My experience working with theatre boards pre-Summer 2020, honestly makes this situation unsurprising. Pre-Summer 2020, in order to get onto most theatre boards, you had to donate quite a bit of money to the theatre and the community, while also having a larger name in your community (i.e. own your own business, lawyer, doctor, etc.). This created a gap between those on the board and those working for the theatre, because most of these board members couldn’t relate to those working for the theatre (minus Artistic Director, and some other department heads). Now, the make-up of theatre boards is shifting, some places are completely starting over with their boards, while some are adding more board member positions. Some theatres are also removing the requirement to donate money. Instead focusing on how the potential board member is helping the community, while also thinking about their theatre background. With Victory Gardens in particular, this situation stems from a board that is unwilling to change and grow with the times. In my opinion, they will probably never reopen, unless the board is completely dismantled and starts over from scratch. With the amount of publicity this has gotten in the theatre community, I highly doubt they will find anyone willing to work for them.
While it is horrible to hear about places like this theater that are racist, unwelcoming, and abusive towards their staff and fight against unionization that protects their workers and artists, it is not surprising. This is a perfect example of what needs to change in the theater industry. It is very easy to sit back and pretend that all the progress we are making as an industry means that we're doing enough and don't have any more problems but examples like this show us that that isn't true. While we may be making great steps in some places, there are thousands of problems that plague our industry. This is why unionization work and anti-racist work is so important. We must always fight towards a better future for all of us, especially people who are marginalized, and that starts with education and training.
This is really unfortunate, but I can’t say I’m that surprised. I’ve heard of many unionization attempts getting shut down in recent times, from theatres to Starbucks. It’s really disappointing in this case though, because it sounds like the theatre has the means and prestige to accommodate the financial requirements of a union, such as minimum salaries. It says right here in the article that the theatre’s board includes several Tony winners. Even union-like demands at work tend to be shut down. This summer when I was working at an opera company, the singers in the Young Artist Program had some very valid complaints that they brought up. They had a representative, but the group ended up meeting in the evenings when they realized their concerns were being pushed aside. These efforts were organized, respectful, and for the well-being of the company, but the managing director and head of the Young Artist Program still didn’t give them the proper time and energy that they deserved.
I saw this headline and didn't remember the theater, but once I got into the article I remembered having read about the resignation of the resident artists back in July. Like Owen said, if they were truly fired those employees will reap not only unemployment benefits, but also easily be able to sue the company. Illinois is an at will state, meaning they can fire anyone for almost any reason. You are still not able to fire someone for reasons that would violate federal law. Those reasons include firing for retaliation or discrimination, and obviously this would be an easy example of retaliation. Many companies seem to be doing this right now as more and more minimum wage workers try to unionize. Theater workers, being similarly underpaid, are also capitalizing on this wave. Not to say unionizing is new, but there has been a lot more of it as of late. Needless to say, this is a complete disaster.
This is rather upsetting. I do not know what the board of directors were thinking with this decision. Right now, it feels like there is a strong push in society for fair working conditions, reasonable pay, and to not overwork yourself. You can call it quiet quitting, or you can call it acting your wage. Either way, the end result is pretty much the same, people don’t want to work for less than what they are worth. If the workers were attempting to unionize after these shameful allegations, to me that reads as workers wanting to rebuild and strengthen the foundation of this company to get started on a better foot and the board should have worked with them to help avoid similar allegations in the future and to give their workers more power and protections. Instead, they have now very publicly made themselves look like pretty bad guys and I am curious where they hope to go from here.
First off, artists are some of the most poorly treated in the workforce, so they most certainly have a right to unionize. For these big theaters to suppress and terminate their workers is truly gross. And that's all said before we even consider the Victory Gardens Theater's racist past. Firing all your workers doesn't erase wrongdoing and malfeasance, it only brings more attention to it. It is great, however, to see other theaters in the area coming together to support these artists. It is obvious that there needs to be some shifting of power at the Victory Gardens Theater, seeing that the Executive Director and Executive Artistic Director resigned in 2020 because the Theater refused to acknowledge the many injustices towards black people and the outrage at the time past a newsletter sent to subscribers.
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