Regularly, in discussing the contract dispute with my fellow stagehands, I’m always startled when they complain of what they view as the lies being put out by the League of American Theatres and Producers. I respond by saying that if this is how your story is being reported in the mainstream press, a story that you know more intimately than any casual reader, imagine that this is happening with every story that they read in the press. The supposed facts are being twisted and the Local One is being cast in the worst possible light. Now imagine someone in each story is being demonized for the benefit of someone else’s purpose.
In today’s parlance it’s called “swift boating”.
After a political group attacked John Kerry’s military record and evoked the turmoil of the Viet Nam war era by using carefully chosen words and phrases designed to cast him in the worst possible way, Kerry’s campaign was over. The mainstream media simply went along because they had been cowed with a similar campaign painting them as having a “liberal bias.” Now, instead of having reporters skeptically asking their sources if the information is true, the vast majority of reporters will passively accept what is given them and pass it along as information. I worked for the better part of a decade at a major television network and saw this process from the inside.
Anyone who has seen their job “outsourced” or “downsized” or tried to preserve their benefits, will recognize the public relations playbook being used by the League. The carefully constructed phases have been tested in focus groups to create powerful negative images. They have dragged out “featherbedding”. They have used “archaic work rules”, “most highly paid”, “fair and balanced”, “at this critical time”, “no work, no pay”, “pay even more people to do nothing”, “hire people who don't do work”, “fair work practices”, “people who don't do work” and more. Bearing little resemblance to the actual facts, these phrases evoke a workplace of big-bellied white guys with their knuckles dragging on the floor that are keeping the poor investors from getting a good return on their money. Not a word is spoken of the skill it takes to create the illusion that is theatre eight shows a week. Nor any reference to the endurance of working eight to midnights for weeks at a time in order to get the show ready for first preview. Not a word is spoken about the time away from the family or working nights, weekends and holidays to get the show on.
But we in IATSE knew that these are the work conditions when we went into this business. We’ve adapted and embraced technology that reduces manpower but creates better illusions the audience demands. Many of these same work rules have been agreed to over the years because both sides recognized that this was a unique business that attracted a unique cast of characters.
What’s forgotten in the demonizing is that in the days following September 11th, when there was smoke still hanging in the air and Times Square was empty, this Local took a 25% pay cut in order to keep shows running. Now with the houses full and every house booked the League of American Theatres and Producers wants us to take a permanent 38% pay cut.
Now I know how Max Cleland felt.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
New Rules
So the "new rules" have been implemented and the world as we stagehands know it has not stopped spinning on it's axis. From what I've seen they're more about petulance than productivity. The guy who mops gets a cut in pay for an hour. The crews can't leave until checking with Stage Management to find out if there is "something broken". The provided lunch may consist of cold pizza. In some houses, the stagehands have to stay until the end of their call no matter how long the show has been over. "Post show work, don't need it to make you stay. Stay here until I tell you to go."
Here's Playbills article about the newly imposed work rules. Read this and decide if any of this is worth going to war over.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/112142.html
Anyone who has been involved with "downsizing" is familiar with the routine. Some MBA decides that the old rules are "archaic" and "inefficient" and sets about letting the market decide what's the best, new, modern way to run things. In what Joseph Schumpeter, in 1942, described as "creative destruction" a brilliant entrepreneur introduces innovation and casts aside the former giants because this will cause innovation and economic development, or as least as it is taught at Wharton and Harvard Business School. Jack Welsh, a demigod in the today's business pantheon, once said that, if he had his way, all the GE factories would be put on rafts and floated to where ever labor was cheapest. You see it's for the benefit of the investor. A modern company doesn't exist to sell products or be part of the community. It exists in order to return a profit for the investor. The investor is the key component here, the raison d'être. Kissinger used this term in one of his books to describe Cardinal Richelieu’s foreign policy in which a State acts solely in its own best interests. Here the Corporation does the same. Richelieu didn’t think the state was comprised of its people but rather of its leaders. Today the Corporation does the same.
The League of American Theatres and Producers has its raison d'être. Not to assist in creating art but to sell tickets. To sell tickets quickly in order to return profit sooner to the investors. The New Broadway Order will stop at nothing in order to accomplish this. So get used to this. The Theatrical Syndicate maintained a chokehold on this industry until the Shubert Brothers used some creative destruction to stop them. Now it’s going to be used on the Shuberts and on the working people who have benefited from the rather comfortable system the Theatre Owners have set up. The other IATSE Theatrical Locals will be next. Then Equity. And then they will turn on the Theatre Owners.
Après moi le deluge.
Here's Playbills article about the newly imposed work rules. Read this and decide if any of this is worth going to war over.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/112142.html
Anyone who has been involved with "downsizing" is familiar with the routine. Some MBA decides that the old rules are "archaic" and "inefficient" and sets about letting the market decide what's the best, new, modern way to run things. In what Joseph Schumpeter, in 1942, described as "creative destruction" a brilliant entrepreneur introduces innovation and casts aside the former giants because this will cause innovation and economic development, or as least as it is taught at Wharton and Harvard Business School. Jack Welsh, a demigod in the today's business pantheon, once said that, if he had his way, all the GE factories would be put on rafts and floated to where ever labor was cheapest. You see it's for the benefit of the investor. A modern company doesn't exist to sell products or be part of the community. It exists in order to return a profit for the investor. The investor is the key component here, the raison d'être. Kissinger used this term in one of his books to describe Cardinal Richelieu’s foreign policy in which a State acts solely in its own best interests. Here the Corporation does the same. Richelieu didn’t think the state was comprised of its people but rather of its leaders. Today the Corporation does the same.
The League of American Theatres and Producers has its raison d'être. Not to assist in creating art but to sell tickets. To sell tickets quickly in order to return profit sooner to the investors. The New Broadway Order will stop at nothing in order to accomplish this. So get used to this. The Theatrical Syndicate maintained a chokehold on this industry until the Shubert Brothers used some creative destruction to stop them. Now it’s going to be used on the Shuberts and on the working people who have benefited from the rather comfortable system the Theatre Owners have set up. The other IATSE Theatrical Locals will be next. Then Equity. And then they will turn on the Theatre Owners.
Après moi le deluge.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Class Struggle, The Post and Oxymorons
From Michael Reidel’s COST OF CLASS STRUGGLE column in the Post.
If class struggle is being mentioned in The Post, odds are the result will be at best, inane.
Rich people can be awfully sentimental about the working classes.
Actually, Mike, rich people think the working classes suck. They don’t want their smelly factories in their hometowns so they ship those nasty, damn things and their crummy unions off to overseas. There our little brown and yellow skinned friends can work in the smelly factories and become consumers themselves. The rich have convinced themselves that they have their own economy, the financial economy, separate from everyone else’s and that theirs is the ultimate expression of American might. Wait, Americanism is déclassé. Real people, our people, the wealthy, are citizens of the world, multinationals, whose expression is the ultimate example of the might of wealth. Our wealth.
Broadway has turned its back on the working and middle classes.
Again, Mike, not so much. Broadway has never really embraced the working and middle class. As a stagehand I've studied this a bit. Vaudeville and burlesque were it entertainment for the masses. Then radio and film. Then television. Now it’s the Internet. To say Broadway has turned it’s back on the working and middle class is like saying the Metropolitan Opera turned it’s back on the same audience. They were never invited to the party in the first place. The fact that the grosses on Broadway have risen so high speaks to the rise of tourism in Times Square and the loss of elitism on Broadway. An elitism the League of American Theatres and Producers is marketing and cheapening at the same time. Broadway is becoming more common rather than less. The aspiration of the middle class for an exposure to culture is main factor driving greater attendance. However, the topicality of the productions also speaks to that lack of understanding of the power of theatre.
The majority of US soldiers killed in Iraq are from the Rust Belt of the Upper Midwest. There are no jobs, no future and the only way out is through the Armed Forces or interior immigration. Hundreds of thousands of people are in the US illegally from all over the world and we don’t hear their stories? Single parent families dominate our society and commercial Broadway theatre ignores the implications. Off-Broadway and smaller spaces will take these issues on but their exposure is extremely limited. Adaptations of movies and revivals of past hits indicates the comfort level of both Broadway investor and audience is quite low to risk while the lack of new dramas and musicals telling powerful, modern stories says that audiences and investors have no appetite for challenging subject matter.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. Karl Marx
If class struggle is being mentioned in The Post, odds are the result will be at best, inane.
Rich people can be awfully sentimental about the working classes.
Actually, Mike, rich people think the working classes suck. They don’t want their smelly factories in their hometowns so they ship those nasty, damn things and their crummy unions off to overseas. There our little brown and yellow skinned friends can work in the smelly factories and become consumers themselves. The rich have convinced themselves that they have their own economy, the financial economy, separate from everyone else’s and that theirs is the ultimate expression of American might. Wait, Americanism is déclassé. Real people, our people, the wealthy, are citizens of the world, multinationals, whose expression is the ultimate example of the might of wealth. Our wealth.
Broadway has turned its back on the working and middle classes.
Again, Mike, not so much. Broadway has never really embraced the working and middle class. As a stagehand I've studied this a bit. Vaudeville and burlesque were it entertainment for the masses. Then radio and film. Then television. Now it’s the Internet. To say Broadway has turned it’s back on the working and middle class is like saying the Metropolitan Opera turned it’s back on the same audience. They were never invited to the party in the first place. The fact that the grosses on Broadway have risen so high speaks to the rise of tourism in Times Square and the loss of elitism on Broadway. An elitism the League of American Theatres and Producers is marketing and cheapening at the same time. Broadway is becoming more common rather than less. The aspiration of the middle class for an exposure to culture is main factor driving greater attendance. However, the topicality of the productions also speaks to that lack of understanding of the power of theatre.
The majority of US soldiers killed in Iraq are from the Rust Belt of the Upper Midwest. There are no jobs, no future and the only way out is through the Armed Forces or interior immigration. Hundreds of thousands of people are in the US illegally from all over the world and we don’t hear their stories? Single parent families dominate our society and commercial Broadway theatre ignores the implications. Off-Broadway and smaller spaces will take these issues on but their exposure is extremely limited. Adaptations of movies and revivals of past hits indicates the comfort level of both Broadway investor and audience is quite low to risk while the lack of new dramas and musicals telling powerful, modern stories says that audiences and investors have no appetite for challenging subject matter.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. Karl Marx
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Reducing The Odds
The League is linking shows closing to the cost of labor. Somehow "Ring of Fire" was more expensive than "Jersey Boys". "Festen" and "The Pirate Queen" were more expensive than "Spring Awakening". They all loaded in with the same size crews. The only real difference is that some were hits and some weren't. The Producers are telling each other (and their Investors) that if only we could reduce costs, we would have hits, hits and more hits. The way I see it is that this like going to a casino and telling the waitress that brings you drinks she needs to work for less because you don't like the odds at the craps table.
The head of the League, Charlotte St. Martin (formerly of the hospitality industry where they know how to treat workers. According to a Pew Study, 17% of all illegal Mexican immigrants work in the hospitality industry.) takes a chapter out the old union-busting handbook and makes illusions to what had been known as "featherbedding" (being forced to hire workers for jobs that don't exist any more due to technology). There's a saying in my business. "A lack of planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part." If the production team for the show doesn't have it's act together and wastes time, this is my problem how, exactly? On the shows I've worked, this poor planning is found more frequently with less experienced teams, with less experienced producers, usually in shows that are done on the cheap. Shows that close quickly but have generated income for the Producers in preproduction, at the expense of the Investors, for months if not years.
By lowering the bar for production, you'll lower the bar for production values. The Producers will take Investor's money for weaker and weaker shows (Batman, The Musical, Abie's Irish Rose, The Musical). By lowering production values, you end up with lifetime work for Producers, greater risk for Investors and a cheapening of the brand that is Broadway.
The head of the League, Charlotte St. Martin (formerly of the hospitality industry where they know how to treat workers. According to a Pew Study, 17% of all illegal Mexican immigrants work in the hospitality industry.) takes a chapter out the old union-busting handbook and makes illusions to what had been known as "featherbedding" (being forced to hire workers for jobs that don't exist any more due to technology). There's a saying in my business. "A lack of planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part." If the production team for the show doesn't have it's act together and wastes time, this is my problem how, exactly? On the shows I've worked, this poor planning is found more frequently with less experienced teams, with less experienced producers, usually in shows that are done on the cheap. Shows that close quickly but have generated income for the Producers in preproduction, at the expense of the Investors, for months if not years.
By lowering the bar for production, you'll lower the bar for production values. The Producers will take Investor's money for weaker and weaker shows (Batman, The Musical, Abie's Irish Rose, The Musical). By lowering production values, you end up with lifetime work for Producers, greater risk for Investors and a cheapening of the brand that is Broadway.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The Business Of Bway
I’d be more inclined to protect these investors if the investors had a little better sense of theatre. If they knew more of David Merrick and less of Rupert Murdock we wouldn’t be loading in shows the likes of Festen, Lestat, or The Pirate Queen. Never heard of them. It’s because they didn’t last very long, They weren’t very good. As the Broadway expression goes, “people stayed away in droves.”
The investors could go to the NYC Public Library, go to the classics section and begin their theatre education there. Instead they seem to have developed their theatrical investing style out of the Daily Racing Form or the craps table in Atlantic City. Roll the dice and make big money. What they also seem to fail to understand is that while they may be risking their disposable income on a long shot, the actors, stagehands, dressers, musicians, ushers and others who make this magic happen (and no, a flying car is not magic) are risking mortgage payments, tuition payments, credit card payments, food shopping and other trivial items when we make a commitment to spend six nights and eights shows a week on this turkey for months at a time, even before it opens.
The biggest difference seems to be that we went into this transient business knowing that every show closes, there would be times when we have to scramble for work, that we would work on turkeys. When we “don’t send your laundry out.” We also make the big money possible. We run the Phantoms, the Les Miz’s, The Lion Kings, the Miss Saigon's, the Chorus Lines for six nights a week, 52 weeks a year in small, cramped, often outdated theatres. At home and on the road.
If these investors would spend as much time reading the Bard was well as Barron’s they would know that Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. Understand the business better, understand the art better and you’ll make better investments.
We know what we are, but not what we may be.
The investors could go to the NYC Public Library, go to the classics section and begin their theatre education there. Instead they seem to have developed their theatrical investing style out of the Daily Racing Form or the craps table in Atlantic City. Roll the dice and make big money. What they also seem to fail to understand is that while they may be risking their disposable income on a long shot, the actors, stagehands, dressers, musicians, ushers and others who make this magic happen (and no, a flying car is not magic) are risking mortgage payments, tuition payments, credit card payments, food shopping and other trivial items when we make a commitment to spend six nights and eights shows a week on this turkey for months at a time, even before it opens.
The biggest difference seems to be that we went into this transient business knowing that every show closes, there would be times when we have to scramble for work, that we would work on turkeys. When we “don’t send your laundry out.” We also make the big money possible. We run the Phantoms, the Les Miz’s, The Lion Kings, the Miss Saigon's, the Chorus Lines for six nights a week, 52 weeks a year in small, cramped, often outdated theatres. At home and on the road.
If these investors would spend as much time reading the Bard was well as Barron’s they would know that Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. Understand the business better, understand the art better and you’ll make better investments.
We know what we are, but not what we may be.
Leo, Not For Profits and Unpaid Crew
http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/08/29/eleventhhour/
There’s an interesting blog at the Grist.org. Seems Leonardo DiCaprio's new doc, the Eleventh Hour, was made mostly non-union. Because, you see, it was so low budget and such a good cause that nobody who really works on the movie should pay their bills or mortgages. Particularly since Leo isn't getting any good PR for it. He's practically GIVING IT AWAY! Leo, who has four movies on the hook of which he is producing three, worked under a SAG contract for the doc. It would appear he doesn’t particularly feel he needs to return the favor and use IATSE contracts for his pet projects.
I’m always amazed that when those that use the not-for-profit dodge feel that somehow the work that is put in to create their projects is inherently different and lesser than a for-profit project. The scenery, the lighting, the camera work, the editing are the same. The skill and effort it takes to present these projects are the same as for-profits. The hours are just as long. My landlord doesn’t give a rat’s ass if I’m working on a not-for-profit, nor does the grocer or utility company.
Pay me union wages, cover my benefits and then I’ll decide if I want to kick in my paycheck. You’ll get a quality work and I too can feel good about you little happy dance.
Spread the joy. Hire Union.
There’s an interesting blog at the Grist.org. Seems Leonardo DiCaprio's new doc, the Eleventh Hour, was made mostly non-union. Because, you see, it was so low budget and such a good cause that nobody who really works on the movie should pay their bills or mortgages. Particularly since Leo isn't getting any good PR for it. He's practically GIVING IT AWAY! Leo, who has four movies on the hook of which he is producing three, worked under a SAG contract for the doc. It would appear he doesn’t particularly feel he needs to return the favor and use IATSE contracts for his pet projects.
I’m always amazed that when those that use the not-for-profit dodge feel that somehow the work that is put in to create their projects is inherently different and lesser than a for-profit project. The scenery, the lighting, the camera work, the editing are the same. The skill and effort it takes to present these projects are the same as for-profits. The hours are just as long. My landlord doesn’t give a rat’s ass if I’m working on a not-for-profit, nor does the grocer or utility company.
Pay me union wages, cover my benefits and then I’ll decide if I want to kick in my paycheck. You’ll get a quality work and I too can feel good about you little happy dance.
Spread the joy. Hire Union.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Samnick The Seer
Seems this guy's crystal ball is working overtime (I wonder if that's billable hours). Hey Norm, any leader wants their legacy to be one of peace and prosperity. It's just that, unlike in boardrooms and law offices, a labor leader knows that the best way to leave a their union in better shape than before is to instill a fighting spirit. What better way than a highly publized punch-up in the middle of Times Square. And what better way to inspire the troops than to show them you have the power to close Broadway. That will leave in it's wake long term peace, prosperity and good morale. It's called a silver platter.
Some of Norm's predictions.
Published: September 15, 1993
From the Kennedy Center musicians' point of view, that is exactly what is at issue in their strike. The talks broke down when the center said it wanted to eliminate contract provisions that guarantee the orchestra's 61 players 10 weeks of ballet performances each season. "If we need 40 musicians," asked the center's lawyer, Norman Samnick, "why should we hire 61? If we have six weeks of work, why should we pay for 10?"
October 04, 2007
However, one attorney with extensive experience in labor matters said he does not believe the league is trying to send a message to the other unions. "I don't think that's the intent," said Norman Samnick, who has bargained against other IATSE chapters about 25 times on behalf of theatres and other venues around the country. "If they really mean what they say, they're going to say it, they're going to do it, and if it rubs off on the other unions, so be it. I don't think they're looking at it like 'I've got another six-shooter here and I'm going to use it on you.' "
Wed Oct 10, 5:09 PM ET
"This is a nervous time for everybody," said Norman Samnick, an entertainment lawyer who specializes in labor relations for Bryan Cave LLP. "Ultimately, it's about the first one to blink.
October 12. 2007 2:13PM
“Waiting till shows are loaded in is a good strategy,” says Norman Samnick, an attorney with Bryan Cave, who has negotiated against the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in the past. “If the shows are loaded in, they could even operate without stagehands.”
(That is of course, if the actors and musicians crossed picket lines.)
The union is now getting ready to respond to anything the League decides to do. It is even taking steps to skirt the necessary permission to strike from Thomas Short, international president of IATSE. Mr. Short didn't return calls for comment, but theater executives say he doesn't want to authorize a strike.
“Tom is retiring next year and he doesn’t want a strike as his legacy,” Mr. Samnick says. “He doesn’t want to be known as the guy who closed Broadway.”
Some of Norm's predictions.
Published: September 15, 1993
From the Kennedy Center musicians' point of view, that is exactly what is at issue in their strike. The talks broke down when the center said it wanted to eliminate contract provisions that guarantee the orchestra's 61 players 10 weeks of ballet performances each season. "If we need 40 musicians," asked the center's lawyer, Norman Samnick, "why should we hire 61? If we have six weeks of work, why should we pay for 10?"
October 04, 2007
However, one attorney with extensive experience in labor matters said he does not believe the league is trying to send a message to the other unions. "I don't think that's the intent," said Norman Samnick, who has bargained against other IATSE chapters about 25 times on behalf of theatres and other venues around the country. "If they really mean what they say, they're going to say it, they're going to do it, and if it rubs off on the other unions, so be it. I don't think they're looking at it like 'I've got another six-shooter here and I'm going to use it on you.' "
Wed Oct 10, 5:09 PM ET
"This is a nervous time for everybody," said Norman Samnick, an entertainment lawyer who specializes in labor relations for Bryan Cave LLP. "Ultimately, it's about the first one to blink.
October 12. 2007 2:13PM
“Waiting till shows are loaded in is a good strategy,” says Norman Samnick, an attorney with Bryan Cave, who has negotiated against the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in the past. “If the shows are loaded in, they could even operate without stagehands.”
(That is of course, if the actors and musicians crossed picket lines.)
The union is now getting ready to respond to anything the League decides to do. It is even taking steps to skirt the necessary permission to strike from Thomas Short, international president of IATSE. Mr. Short didn't return calls for comment, but theater executives say he doesn't want to authorize a strike.
“Tom is retiring next year and he doesn’t want a strike as his legacy,” Mr. Samnick says. “He doesn’t want to be known as the guy who closed Broadway.”
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