Ok, there seems to be a lot of mudslinging here.
Where is this mythical statement from local one? Noone here once has posted a link to it or anything to substantially back up what they are saying.
And for everyone in a union that is complaining about how they don't get what IATSE members get, that is your union's fault. They negotiate a contract on your behalf. If you have a problem say something to them, not to a message board on the internet.
Does anyone here know the cost of living in New York City for a single person, a married couple, and a family of four? Please someone post it here and then decide if stagehands can live off of their salary or not.
Another common thing I see here is that people feel that stagehands should get another job if they don't think they make enough money. I am a union stagehand, I work at theaters, convention centers, arenas, hotels, casinos, schools, and other venues as a carpenter, electrician, property man, fly man, rigger, dresser, sound man, projectionist, and a party decorator just to name a few of things I do as a stagehand. I travel between Massachusetts and New Jersey doing these things just so that I cannot make enough to pay my rent, bills, and feed myself. In addition to being a stagehand, I work on boats, computers, web pages, building things, wiring houses, raking leaves, driving people around, and anything else that I can do to earn a little extra money. So yes, I have a second job and in fact I have a 45th job. I also pay for continuing education so that I can be fully qualified to do my job and use equipment that I need to effectively get the job done.
MrTuttle: Where did you see this $500 figure? Please show the rest of us your crystal ball.
Bobby Maler: How many LORT Theaters have IATSE crews? Maybe AEA should walk out of all the non-union ones until they hire a union crew? AEA has several different touring contracts, if a producer wishes to use them then so be it. I have been a local on a lot of AEA tours and meanwhile there crews are all non-union. If you want us to stop doing non-AEA tours then you guys need to stop doing non-IA tours. I will never forget the day I was backstage working on an out of town tryout of a show at a nonunion theater talking to an AEA stage manager about one of our friends he was on a yellow card and he said that our friend should not being doing the tour because it was not an AEA show. I said to him, "What are you talking about? This isn't an IATSE house so with your logic you shouldn't be working here either." And he said, "That doesn't matter, this is different." If I picked up the dictionary at the moment and looked up hypocrit I'm sure that I would have seen his face. By the way, stop speaking out against your union. AEA has publicly stated that they support the strike action and you therefore should support it as well or take a hike. Also check your constitution and by laws and see what it says about crossing a picket line and how it will affect your membership of that union. While I myself have some issues with some of the things being asked for and can see where the producers are coming from, I fully support Local One in their fight because I know they will support me in mine. They have good reasons to threaten a strike let alone strike, unlike all the actors I know that have threatened to not perform because the air conditioning was broken.
BwayJerry: You are right, it is illegal to air something on TV without a person's consent, which is why when people shoot street scenes and I am walking down the street I don't have a PA running after me with a consent form. And I don't follow you on how cutting the chorus from 4 to 2 isn't a necessity? It's pretty simple, if I'm producing a show and I only want to pay 2 chorus people then there are only going to be 2 chorus people. You can have 4, but I'm only paying for 2. I know you're thinking right now, "But keeping the crew at 4 is ok?" No, we can just replace everyone on the crew with automation and midi controller and have the musicians fire all the lighting, sound, carpentry cues. Better yet, we can just record a CD of the orchestra and have it timecoded and let the show be run that way, I'm sure that the actors always sing at the same tempo and never jump a lyric. This way all we need is a conductor and a stage manager at most. All you have to do is hit play when it's time for the music and things will just magicly work. Noone will notice the difference nor be there to stop scenery from running down the people on stage when they're in the wrong spot or behind because afterall, nothing ever goes wrong in live theater. As for non-union touring, look above. If AEA can send showso out with a non-union crew, why can't we? As for the "cry for help" to IATSE, from how you have it phrased that is between AEA and the International General Office. Local One does not exclusivley provide stagehand labor around the country.
I think I need to explain what IATSE is, what is going with this strike, and how IATSE striking with other unions works. IATSE stands for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. This, unlike equity, is an alliance of hundreds of local unions that have banded together in mutual support of one another. They represent stagehands, projectionists, script supervisors, arena facility workers, and ticket takers to just name a few jobs covered by them. Right now, Theatrical Protective Union Local One, the local that covers stagehands in broadway theaters, is on strike. The president of IATSE, Tom Short, not the president of Local One, James Claffey Jr, has authorized the strike and directed all of it's members to support Local One and to strike with them in the event that they are presented with an official road call from Local One. If an IATSE member does not strike when presented with the offical road call, they are subject to immediate expulsion from IATSE. Now, if AEA or AFM were to go on strike, IATSE members cannot exercise a strike in support of affilate unless authorized to do so by the General Office. So if, for example, AEA or AFM went on strike and Local One said, "Everyone strike with the actors," without recieving authorization from the General Office, the IATSE members who do so are now partaking in an illegal strike action and are subject to fines, suspension, or expulsion from IATSE upon conviction. Furthermore Local One may also be fined and they face a possible suspension and/or revocation of it's charter. Keep that in mind the next time you say IATSE/Local One doesn't support us, everyone has protocols that they need to follow.
bk: I think the problem here is that 38% of the jobs are being taken away and the league feels that by giving a substantial wage increase to the 62% of people still being employed will compensate the 38% of people who now are making $0.00. I don't recall there ever being a room at a theater that has a sign on it, "Non-working Stagehands Report Here." The load-in of a show is organized chaos. One minute one department has nothing to do, the next there are 5 different crews from that department fighting for space with 5 other departments to try and get their job done. And then later on, 2 crews of guys are working while 3 others are waiting an hour for the truck to get into the dock area because some guy decided he could park his car in the way.
Tkt2Ride: Thanks for pointing out that the League threatened to Lockout Local One. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that back in October members of Local One didn't know if they would be allowed into the building to work let alone if they had a contract to work under. Also thanks for touching on what happens at a contract negotiation. In a good negotiation session, both sides go in asking for everything immaginable and then each side picks and chooses things to be cut in return for a concession from the other side.
Jrybka: It's the same thing in regional theaters, community playhouses, and nonprofits. A lot of them use unions, yes even community playhouses. And I resent that comment you made about not doing it "for the love of the lights but for the green in the wallet." I love what I do for a living, but I need to be able to support myself so I can continue to be living.
tourboi: Yes, the merchandising for a show is done by an outside company hired by the producers of the show who get a percentage of that sale. What you failed to mention is that a percentage of the sale also goes to the theater which they are selling the merchandise in. Please, learn a little bit about merchandising and then come back and talk about how theaters don't get anything from a show.
Bobby Maler: Your ignorance again is overwhelming, shows may not appear to be getting "bigger" but they are. By trying to keep construction costs down, scenery is now being built tougher and more durable which means that things are heavier. IE bugmenot's comment about having to move steel i-beams instead of wood. I myself can lift a 100 lbs bag of sand without too much of a problem. But when it comes to moving a 30 foot steel i-beam, you need at least 4 guys if not more. Who currently inspects the flyspace now? The flyman. Couldn't this be a temporary inspection? Well yes it could be, but a show in a theater is a temporary installation which required specialized construction and installation which needs to be checked daily to make sure that nothing that was temporarily installed is failing that day or about to fail. If something heavy is evenly distributed across five chains hanging from a grid and one of those five chains it up fails, the other four chains now are taking more weight than they are designed to do and any/all of them may fail due to an increased load which they may not be rated for. And heaven forbid there's a higher shock chains then they are rated for when one of them fails because that too could result in failure. As for guys being paid $150,000 a year round by the production, it is my understanding, and I'm sure some of the one guys here can confirm it, that the production does not pay employees on the Local One payroll! They are paid by the individual theaters that are being rented by the production. The only stage hands paid for by the production are the production people which are on a seperate contract that is not in dispute here.
NDR: My hometown has 10 paid firemen 2 in each of the 5 departments. The rest are all volunteers who pay dues to a fire company, pay for their own certifications, and run these companies. They put their lives on the line at no cost to me, why should every NYC firefighter get paid when only 10 guys in my hometown get paid? Also, as a theatergoer you are paying a company to provide you with entertainment. It doesn't matter to you if there is 1 stagehand or 1000 on the show, you just want to be entertained. Tkt2Ride is right, if you don't like your working conditions and know a bunch of other like minded people who don't like theirs then call the NLRB and say, "My coworkers and I want to form a union because we do not like our working conditions." At which point you will now have one voice instead of many, you will pay dues and assem*nt on the work that the union has bargained for on your behalf and if there is a problem in the work place with your employer, the union will support you. As for cross training, many stagehands do know how to do other jobs in theater. Besides the fact that it is not the job of the electrician to run the fly rail, one of the underlying problems is that the fly rail in theaters are sometimes 70 feet off the ground. This means they have to spend 10 minutes now climbing up and down a ladder or some staircase just to to get to/from the fly rail only to go back to fix the problem that they found. Once they spend the necessary time trouble shooting and fixing the problem with the light, they now have to spend another 10 minutes climbing up/down a ladder to bring the lights back to their respective storage position. During all this though work has come to a halt on the stage because there is a lighting pipe blocking access to other parts of the stage and the scenery cannot be moved to it's proper postitions so that they can open the house in time to let the audience in which causes the curtain to go up late, which now causes the crew, the musicians, and the actors to go into overtime because they show exceeded the amount of time specified in their contracts. So the production has now paid a thousand dollars worth of overtime because they didn't want to pay one guy to be on site to deal with any unforseen problems that may occur. That seems like bad business to me. And yes, you do need someone on hand everyday to ensure the saftey of temporary rigging and scenery.
uncageg: I'll tell you what is worse than the producers using money from the general public to fund a war chest is using money from the tickets union members have purchased to fund a war chest. It sucks to be paying for something that can only hurt you.
And lastly fsuchris is right. It's sad to see so many people, who claim to be members of AEA, speaking out against a union that they work hand in hand with on a daily basis, let another AFL-CIO affiliated union. In the 121 year history of Local One, they had never called a strike until now regardless of their work conditions and contract negotiations, can AEA say the same?
