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Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IATSE President Meets With Kennedy Center Workers Affected by Trump Turmoil, Urges Productions Not to ‘Walk Away’
www.yahoo.com/news: Matthew D. Loeb, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, met this week with union members who work at the Kennedy Center and who face financial uncertainty as a result of more than a dozen show cancellations made in protest of Donald Trump’s takeover of the performing arts complex’s board.
Having followed the news about the takeover at the Kennedy Center, and gaining a little more understanding about the stagehands who load in shows and work on crew, I think this is a no win scenario. However this ends, ground will be lost. Either workers lose employment opportunities, or the productions subject themselves to censorship and suffer from a lack of free speech. I think it is also worth noting that due to the takeover of the Kennedy Center, some productions were canceled because the new leadership didn’t like them. What makes me mad about this entire situation is how the censorship is spreading, especially since there was similar news about the Smithsonian this past week. It just doesn’t bode well for our industry, and I think that eventually the lack of employment is going to be a result of cancellations on the part of the leadership. There is no real solution here.
I think it’s interesting that the IATSE leader was asking the productions not to walk away from the Kennedy center. If they did, where would they go? To a different production company? Could they even pull that off? Besides if I was in their shoes, I would be worried of getting kicked out of the Kennedy center by the new leadership before I decided to leave on my own. Either way, all the people working at the Kennedy center are going to lose from these decisions. There’s going to be less money coming in because they keep cancelling productions they don’t like or find offensive or whatever. Infiltrating the arts and trying to censor the arts. I also hate the fact that it stills feels so far away, if that makes sense. It is affecting all of us, but yet it still feels too distant for most people to do anything about it. Until there are laws in everyone’s own hometown restricting them from living how they want, they won’t think it’s that bad and they won’t stand up to try and stop it.
The ask to keep middle class workers working is a very reasonable one. Everybody deserves to make a living wage no matter your line of work. I think the issue here is the lack of support from the union of the workers against this landslide against Democrats who are supposed to support workers. The administration is against social programs that support middle and poor citizens and only supports social programs for rich companies and citizens. This is directly against the interest of the workers in the union. Although I do see the reason behind not going directly against the administration because that would put the union in with a political affiliation and might jeopardize their contract with the Kennedy Center. The sphere of influence that Trump is trying to have is ever growing and if it is allowed to grow more it will be even more detrimental to everything we do.
3 comments:
Having followed the news about the takeover at the Kennedy Center, and gaining a little more understanding about the stagehands who load in shows and work on crew, I think this is a no win scenario. However this ends, ground will be lost. Either workers lose employment opportunities, or the productions subject themselves to censorship and suffer from a lack of free speech. I think it is also worth noting that due to the takeover of the Kennedy Center, some productions were canceled because the new leadership didn’t like them. What makes me mad about this entire situation is how the censorship is spreading, especially since there was similar news about the Smithsonian this past week. It just doesn’t bode well for our industry, and I think that eventually the lack of employment is going to be a result of cancellations on the part of the leadership. There is no real solution here.
I think it’s interesting that the IATSE leader was asking the productions not to walk away from the Kennedy center. If they did, where would they go? To a different production company? Could they even pull that off? Besides if I was in their shoes, I would be worried of getting kicked out of the Kennedy center by the new leadership before I decided to leave on my own. Either way, all the people working at the Kennedy center are going to lose from these decisions. There’s going to be less money coming in because they keep cancelling productions they don’t like or find offensive or whatever. Infiltrating the arts and trying to censor the arts. I also hate the fact that it stills feels so far away, if that makes sense. It is affecting all of us, but yet it still feels too distant for most people to do anything about it. Until there are laws in everyone’s own hometown restricting them from living how they want, they won’t think it’s that bad and they won’t stand up to try and stop it.
The ask to keep middle class workers working is a very reasonable one. Everybody deserves to make a living wage no matter your line of work. I think the issue here is the lack of support from the union of the workers against this landslide against Democrats who are supposed to support workers. The administration is against social programs that support middle and poor citizens and only supports social programs for rich companies and citizens. This is directly against the interest of the workers in the union. Although I do see the reason behind not going directly against the administration because that would put the union in with a political affiliation and might jeopardize their contract with the Kennedy Center. The sphere of influence that Trump is trying to have is ever growing and if it is allowed to grow more it will be even more detrimental to everything we do.
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