The Playgoer: Lockout Update: Producers Win?

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Saturday, October 06, 2007

Lockout Update: Producers Win?

Thanks to Steve on Broadway for tipping us off to Jeremy Gerard's apparent scoop in Bloomberg yesterday that the producers may get what they want after all without having to resort to a lockout of the stagehands. Still no final agreement, but the union reportedly has assented in principle to a smaller required load-in crew. In exchange for higher load-in pay.
Reports Gerard:

The turnaround on Thursday by Local 1 came at the end of a tense day of negotiations, the two people said, when the union side apparently recognized that this time, the producers were willing to face a shutdown rather than extend the status quo.
Interesting, though, that the theatre owners (Shuberts, Nedelanders, Jujamcyn) were so panicked about a shutdown they wanted to back down. But the mighty League persisted.
Earlier in the week, the people said, there had been dissent within the ranks of management, which includes both Broadway theater owners, who traditionally wielded the most power in negotiations, and producers, who actually pay the bills. When the theater owners nearly acceded to the union demand to hold firm on the work rules, producers balked. According to the sources, the producers insisted on holding firm to the demand that the load-in rules be changed.
So that was Thursday. According to a small Metro item in the Times today, negotiations yesterday went till midnight and have just been extended to Tuesday.

By the way, according to Gerard, "The cost of the load-in can easily exceed $1 million and was, the producers argued, a contributing factor in the 80 percent failure rate of Broadway shows." Well, some shows, maybe.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I dont think anyone WINS!
Everyone loses except the lawyers.
Remember when you could reach an agreemet without a lawyer

Anonymous said...

Grosses were up 8.9 percent for the the year for a total af $939 milion, according to Playbill. The tally is based on data supplied by The League of American Theatres and Producers

Give them a Tony
Ive never seen acting like this before

Anonymous said...

Any New Word about whats going On?

Are thy Talking?

Any New Deadlines?

Playgoer said...

Dude--
(or dudette)

You're on an old post. I'm trying to update daily on this so check the date and stay tuned to playgoer.blogspot.com