by Nancy Van Ness
– USA –
I cross 42nd Street and walk up Times Square. It is a cold, windy, rainy day but I had promised to come. I continue past the army recruiting center and the police headquarters; police are out in force. I notice the New York Times building on the east side of the Square at 43rd. The huge Clear Channel signs, some of the most prominent of those that are bright day and night cast a glow that makes the square seem like daytime 24 hours a day while flashing images. Across the way are the Disney buildings and Reuters. I walk over to the Broadway side of the Square, go up to 44th and then to Shubert Alley and over to 45th, giving high fives and thumbs up to striking stage hands as they parade up and down between police barriers in front of the theaters.
I stop briefly to speak with a woman as bundled up as I was against the weather, just to encourage her. Standing in front of the theater’s huge sign advertising A Chorus Line, she says they just want to hang on to what they have.
I head to a theater where, ironically, the show is about RCA’s theft of the rights to the invention of television from its inventor. It is never comfortable or convenient to man the picket lines and today is really nasty, but I had told the stage hands there I would be back today, so here I am.
I have come to see if I can get a true picture of what is going on. The endless media reports about the family from Seattle or somewhere else who had come to see The Grinch and how disappointed the children were because the stage hands had shut the show down had become intolerable to me.
Where is the story about the children whose parent is a stage hand, who will lose their house if the proposed 38% cut in jobs and pay is forced on the union? Where are our values? How can anyone’s vacation and a holiday show be more important than hard working middle class families who risk losing their income and their homes?
We are not going to see or hear that story for the simple reason that the owners of the media are the owners of Broadway, both its shows and the real estate; they just don’t want us to know it. Few Americans are aware of some basic facts:
The largest grossing entity on Broadway is Disney, whose three Broadway shows the week of November 4, 2007, the last week before the strike, grossed a total of $2,205,016. Disney owns ABC.
The highest grossing show that week, which has remained at the top, earning over a million dollars a week for many weeks, was Wicked, with $1,335,757. It is produced by Universal Pictures, a subsidiary of the same company that owns NBC.
(Data about the receipts of top shows can be found here.)
The New York Times is an official partner of the League of Theater Owners and Producers, the same entity that is trying to break the stagehands’ union. Its final offer would reduce their jobs and pay by 38%. (The cynicism of The Times is so blatant it’s ludicrous. On November 15th they declared that the current French transit strike was “provoked” by France’s president, whereas they place the blame for the darkening of Broadway on the workers. The Times has no financial interest in French transit; it does in Broadway shows and real estate.)
The Union, Local One of the Theatrical Stage Employees Union, has been negotiating with the League since July and has been working without a contract for some time. They report that the League is actually making further demands, not fewer, as negotiations have lurched forward. They were finally forced to either endorse a contract that would hurt its members badly or go out on strike.
It is not in the interest of the New York Times, ABC, NBC, Reuters, or other corporate media to tell us the facts about this situation. Big corporations own Broadway and the media. They do not want to the public to know the real story and as press, they have the means of keeping people in the dark. Even people who may have known that Disney owns ABC or that the Times is a big investor in the area find it very hard to connect all the dots. And the corporate media wants to keep it that way.
I want to see the “Light”, so I went to Times Square to see for myself.
Local One is very disciplined and smart. Its president spoke to a press conference on Sunday, November 11, 2007, the day after the strike started. Not surprisingly, that conference was not widely televised or reported, but the text is available to people who search for it.
The stagehands manning the picket lines will not talk to the press or media. They can count on being misquoted and misrepresented, so why should they? They speak only through their officials. I admire their solidarity and discipline.
Many of them say they would like the general public to know the facts instead of the misrepresentations – if not outright lies – that are published by the media. The press and television news have implanted the idea that stagehand members of Local One earn a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more a year in the minds of many Americans. The stagehands themselves say that is grossly exaggerated. For one thing, many of them do not work all year. This is not a stable office job. These workers are paid per production; so when a show closes, there goes the work. They are not making a killing, unlike corporate executives. Some of them make a decent middle class living. As the president of Local One asked, “Why is it weird for middle class workers in America to fight for their jobs?”
Would the media present the strike favorably if the workers were starving, not “just” in danger of losing their homes? Would that make a strike okay?
Stagehands also want the general public to know that the same big corporations that control the media and many productions also own Broadway real estate. One stagehand told me about a local business that had been in the area over twenty-five years. Suddenly, the block was bought out and the rent was raised so high that the business owner couldn’t pay. In place of his former thriving small business is now another big corporate bank branch; the whole area is filled with them.
The stagehands want us to know, too, that under the contract they’ve had, they work extremely long hours, often for weeks on end without a single day off. One stagehand, a veteran of more than two decades on Broadway (with whom I swapped stories about grandchildren among other things), said that he had just worked twenty-two days straight, many of them from 8am to 10 pm. They want us to know that they are not idling along in cushy jobs, an impression that the public may be getting from statements by the League widely circulated in the media. This seasoned worker said he just wished people could be there to see what they do.
They want us to know that they do not stand around, but rather they move heavy equipment, making sure it is safely installed. The work they do is often difficult physical labor which can also require great skill. It keeps everyone in a production safe.
This same vigorous and lively grandfather said that a few years ago when the musicians went out on strike, people told him that the stagehands would be next. He didn’t believe them but now here he is on the line. He knows that the strike is not just about their contract but also about big corporations wanting to break the unions to exploit an unprotected work force.
The stagehands also talked to me about the corporate owners’ neglect of their beloved theaters, some of them now historic buildings. They spoke of badly needed maintenance that is not undertaken. My companion spoke with passion about how much he wants to see the dingy façade of the old theater beside us cleaned.
I am 61 years old and never in my lifetime has there been so much anti-labor policy in this country. The big corporations that own Broadway and the media do not want union workers. They want to pay as little as possible and reap the greatest profits. This is part of the bigger picture of outsourcing, using contract labor, and the other ways US corporations are raising profits on the backs of those who do the work.
Local One says that cuts in stagehands’ jobs and pay will not result in lower ticket prices for the public. Instead, it will only mean greater profits for the corporate owners. Average ticket prices the week of November 4 for the three Disney shows were: Mary Poppins, $81.87; The Lion King, $89.07; The Little Mermaid, $87.17; for Wicked, $92.40. Local One also reports in its flyer handed out at picket lines that the League used a part of those ticket sales to build a $20,000,000 fund to be used against the union.
I heard an anecdote about the corporate culture of the entertainment industry from Thea Luria who was executive assistant at Loewe’s Cineplex on Fifth Avenue in 1999 and 2000. She used a company pass to go to one of its cinemas to see a film and was stunned to find that a small bottle of water that would have cost no more than a dollar elsewhere was sold for $4.
She took the bottle to work the next day, plunked it down on the desk of then Executive Vice President for Operations Mike Norris and declared, “We should be ashamed that this bottle of water cost $4!”
Norris justified the price gouging by saying that 90% of the company’s gross receipts went to pay for the ever increasing rental fees of the films they showed. Profits came from concessions. He claimed they needed profits to pay large salaries to retain the executives who led the firm. Thea, acquainted with the numbers from her work, asked how many houses one person really needs. She had seen the enormous sums paid to these executives and their huge bonuses, yet they haggled over paying a $1,500 raise to accountants making $29,000 per year. And meanwhile, they overcharge the public!
Not long after this conversation, those executives whose salaries dictated that the company gouge the public at the concession stands, led Loewe’s Cineplex right into bankruptcy; it filed Chapter 11 and was sold to a company that buys out failed entities.
However, the CEO who presided over that debacle was given over $10,000,000 and a new car as his severance.
Disproportionate amounts of corporate profits go to executives. Princeton economist Paul Krugman notes that corporate culture started changing, profiting the few by exploiting the many, in the US in the 1980’s and has continued to do so at a rapid pace since the advent of the Bush regime. What Thea observed has grown much more extreme since she lost her job when Loewe’s went bankrupt.
After an hour or so on the picket lines, enlightened about their situation, I bid the stagehands goodbye and headed back to Broadway then down to 42nd Street, past the police headquarters and army station. Unlike some, I have a sense that the police and army presence is not really for “safety” but comes from a more sinister motive. We in the US have become accustomed to that presence and are numb to it, but today it seems startling and disturbing to me. Everything about Broadway seems that way to me today.
About the Author
Nancy Van Ness, founder and Director of the American Creative Dance group in New York City, is a 61 year old modern dancer who has taken up tango in recent years. Always serious about dance, she went to Buenos Aires to study with one of the greatest maestros of that form. Having spent decades in a unitard in small black box theaters making “high art,” she is now sometimes seen in slinky dresses dancing tango con alma y pasión in tango salons and at international dance concerts.
As an unexpected result of her tango dancing, she was cast as the female lead in Tango Passion, a romantic comedy set in a tango salon. Tango Passion is now being featured at film festivals, most recently at the 2007 Boston International Film Festival. Van Ness says, “It is a romantic comedy about people my age instead of young lovers. I took on the role partly to confront stereotypes about who is lovable, who is attractive, who is even visible in our culture.” Filled with many surprises, it is about a couple whose relationship has definitely not lost the spice of life.
Van Ness was, however, shocked to find that the medium works in ways she hadn’t understood before. The exhibit “Dangerous Beauty” at the Chelsea Art Museum elucidated what was troubling her about having played the role of the luscious Claudia in the film.
Van Ness created an innovative, avant garde system of dance and musical accompaniment for her company, American Creative Dance. The troupe’s dance work requires performers to be creators; they do not perform dance classics. All dancers use their own bodies to make art, they do not have an impersonal instrument such as the musician, the painter, or the writer does. But using one’s body as a tool involves risk. Dancers in this troupe create their work in plain view under the audience’s eyes. For further information please visit American Creative Dance.
Nancy Van Ness lives in New York City.
Before you make wild claims about hidden motives, remeber that Disney stands NOTHING to gain by “hiding” information about the strike. The New Amsterdam (home of Mary Poppins) is not contracted with Local One. Lion King and Little Mermaid are playing in Nederlander theaters. Nederlander-NOT DISNEY–closed the theaters when Local One threatened a strike. Disney is also not part of the 38% job and pay cut. This is clear to anyone who realizes that Disney is not a part of the the League of American Theatres and Producers–the organization with which Local One is fighting. Disney stand only to lose here. They have no Local One contract, so if the cut goes through, Disney is unaffected. Shows like the Lion King which have been running for a long time rely heavily on walk-up business. With the shows dark at present time, it puts the long-runners in danger of having to close. I don’t think Disney WANT the Lion King to close–so I don’t think they want to “hide” the strike. You’ll also notice, as the Hollywood Reporter website explains, that Disney is the organization that convinced the two sides to at least start negotiations.
The strike’s not on ABC news because, quite frankly, theater is not as significant in the avergae American’s life as it used to be. ABC needs ratings and a strike on B’way doesn’t interest most people.
I can imagine how encouraging it was to the stage hands, in that cold, blistery weather, to have your presence and encouragement and interest in the story of those on the picket line.
This article is written with great insight about the latest union-busting opportunity, and I hope it is read by the widest audience possible, preferably the paying audience.
Disney or not Disney, the objective is still the same for the corporations and investors: more money, less pay-out, no matter the human consequence.
Thank you to all who have commented for your interest in this labor dispute. Mike, I appreciate your remarks. It has been widely reported in the MSM that Disney is not a member of the League. They do, however, benefit from any concessions the League can wring out of the workers.
A Disney employee at the bargaining table can hardly be considered a disinterested party.
As for the interests of the public driving news, that is a burning issue for me. First, I would say that the public is interested in theater, at least enough to spend millions of dollars a week on Broadway shows. What is lacking in the discourse on this issue is information that this article puts forward: the point of view of the workers and the facts of the interconnectedness of the media that reports on the dispute with the corporations that benefit from lower labor costs.
I never said Disney was disinterested. I said that Disney’s concern is there multi-million dollar-making Lion King closing because the two sides can’t strike an agreement. THAT is the interest of the Walt Disney Company. Nederlander–not Disney–contracts with Local One and so Nederlander is the organization that benefits from a pay/job cut. I seriously doubt Nederlander will reduce Disney’s rent for the Minskoff and L-F theaters if the cut goes through. So Disney doesn’t gain by the 38% cut. They do, howver, lose heavily when Lion King and Little Mermaid aren’t running. Again, I never said Disney is uninterested. But unlike the League, their interest is in self-preservation, not in the weakening of Local One.
To the other point: People spending millions of dollars a week on theater is good for theater, but DOESN’T mean theater is significant to most Americans. Last year, slightly over 12 million people attended Broadway shows. Top-rated shows on the major networks beat that number every week. I also have to wonder how many individuals make up that 12 million people statistic. Personally, I saw 15 shows last year and, since TICKETS are counted to determine how many PEOPLE saw shows in a given year, that means I am 15 of those 12 million. So even then, the number of theater-goers, I have to imagine, is significantly lower. Not to mention movies. A good movie with a strong openning weekend can beat a week’s worth of all the grosses of all the shows on Broadway. Personally, I LOVE theater, but I’m not going to blame Disney and Universal for focusing their attention elsewhere in news broadcasts, etc.
4 years ago I had my first opportunity to see a Broadway show. It was “Wicked” and it was amazing. I happened to be in town for a tourism convention and the city rolled out the red carpet to all those attending. As a matter of fact one night they put on a production that included scenes from each of the major shows to promote Broadway and encourage the travel market to send business to NY. I can’t tell you the number of times I told my wife, family and friends about my first Broadway show and how exciting it was and my eagerness to return.
On November 12th, my wife and I were blessed to celebrate our 24th anniversary. So this year we decided leave Tennessee and come to the Big Apple where I could have a chance to finally share my experience and have my wife take in a real Broadway show. I had tickets for a 3PM Sunday matinee and it was going to be the end of a great memory.
On a rainy Friday evening my wife and I ventured into Times Square. We did not mind overcoming the weather or waiting for over an hour and half to have dinner at a popular Italian restaurant close to Broadway. The place was packed, standing room only and we heard that as soon as the shows started, things would begin to clear out. As we stood waiting several visitors started talking about what shows they were going to see and how they had come to celebrate a birthday, anniversary or other special occasion. No one gave a thought that their shows would not go on and everyone seemed very excited.
On Saturday we visited many of the major attractions in NY and decided to go back into Times Square. I was craving a piece of NY cheese cake and cup of coffee and since it was my wife’s first time to NY what better thing to do than grab a window seat and watch the world go by.
As we were walking up the street from the Police Headquarters we noticed a scrolling sign and my wife said “I think I just read Broadway is on strike!” We continued our walk until we came to the Legally Blonde entrance. My wife quickly noticed that the doors were literally darkened unlike the day before and there was a notice that the show had gone on strike. I stood there in shock and disbelief since I had not heard that this was even a remote possibility.
I told my wife that we should continue up the street and I would check my PDA to see if I could find out more details. Needless to say it was all true except the news article I was able to find online said that some theatres were still operating but no list was provided. We decided that since we were only 3 blocks from the show we might as well check things out and headed to the Gershwin theatre. Sure enough we discovered the same notice. My disappointed was huge and even though my wife tried to encourage me that maybe things would work out by tomorrow I knew there would be no memory made.
I share this story because the comments and opinions that I have read only seemed to show views from the Union or Producers side and not from those who pay their bills, salary and profits. No my life did not end or come to an earth shattering moment that I could not deal with but as always it seems that the ones who pay for everything are the supporters. I understand both sides have issues that need to be worked out and support their right to do so.
Had we known ahead time that the Local One was going to go on strike without warning we might have been able delay our visit until a latter time or at least had a back up plan. We spent over a few thousand dollars between travel, hotel, food and entertainment and now have to deal with the ticket agency to get a refund rather than an exchange for our tickets leaving me holding the bag. As for the producers they should have tried to works things out. After all they were selling tickets knowing full well that this could happen but never took our position into consideration. That would be like selling toys that might have lead paint in them but letting them go until there was a major problem before dealing with it. I am not sure when I will return to Broadway. I may just stick to the movie theatres in future, you see when they go on strike it only costs me about $40 and I can still go home and watch the tube. As for my goal to make a memory in NY we did, but just not the one I had expected.
Nancy and Mike,
Thank you for the marvelously interesting and provocative writings. There are a number of stated and subliminal issues contained in this discussion. I am most concerned about the relevance of unions in our current society. A glaring example is a Company like Wal-Mart which has a reputation of going to great extremes to insure their employees are unable to participate in collective bargaining. It would appear that their management believes they must avoid a union at almost all costs. Perhaps a absolute management control is thought necessary to maintain their promise of everyday low prices.
In the private sector 7.5% of workers are union members. Why bother? Consider the recent physical and philosophical split of the AFL-CIO from the Teamster- SEIU coalition and the political power of unions has been further deluded.
What does all of this have to do the writers/stage hands strikes? It seems that management, which is charging what the bull market will bear for Broadway tickets, may be taking a Wal-Mart approach to the strikes and to unions. Labor and capital should be equal partners in an just enterprise. Without a meaningful, respected union, the concept of a collective bargaining is a sham.
I am hopeful that Disney and the others who represent ownership will approach this negotiation by conducting respectful, collective bargaining. Without this, we might consider accepting the benevolence that management elects to provide. The people who were killed at the beginning of the last century to establish unions for their co-workers, must be turning over in their graves that as their gains are quietly surrendered.
—
Jack Smith
206-321-4815
New Address- erie1917@gmail.com
Fist of all, thank you for sharing the important side of the story. As far as I am concerned, no one goes into strike because they want. I’ll be honest. I am getting ready for my first trip to NY as I type, and one of my biggest dreams has been to see a Broadway show. Now, as I read about the strike, I wonder, what can we turists do to support the stage-hands. Obviously, Disney and co. are losing money over this, and maybe if the theater goers do something to help the stage hands they will be able to keep what they have, and what they’ve fought to keep.
Okay…I’m really ticked off at Mr. Joseph Smith…cry me a river about your memory not being made. These people are going to lose their homes. Do you understand that?? Do any of you?? You say they should think of YOU…the people who pay their salary and such. These folks love their jobs. If they didn’t…they’d have left and found something else. Why should they have to worry about your memory making weekend in NYC over their families, homes and jobs?? Don’t be so darn selfish! How dare you! And had you picked up a paper you would have known that the strike was something they had been talking about for some time. I live in Minnesota…have no connection to NYC other than Lance Bass who is currently supporting the stagehands strike even though he is out of a job until Hairspray is back on…but knew that a strike was inevitable if they didn’t reach an agreement soon. My best friend (who lives in Princeton, NJ) and I decided to wait on getting tickets to Hairspray to see Lance perform until we knew what was going to happen with the contract. I’ve seen three Broadway shows…Wicked being my first as well…and I loved them all and have been able to take back wonderful memories of the show. However, had I not been able to see Wicked or Spamalot or Avenue Q it would not have ruined my trip to NYC as there are plenty of other shows to see…off-b’way shows are amazing…and there are other b’way shows that are still on…The Putnam County Spelling Bee is one of them. Had you done a little more research or walking you might have found that out. But instead you spent the remainder of your trip pouting.
Just remember when you’re job is in jeopardy and you can’t understand why no one is supporting your right to keep your job or get that raise…you really have no place to complain or be upset because you didn’t support people that needed yours when they were in the same position.
And to Adalisa…what you can do to support the stagehands…just tell them that you support them. Simply walk up, shake their hands and tell them where you’re from, and that even though seeing a show was a dream, you’d rather they got what they needed and stand beside them in support. As an actor myself, I can tell you I would appreciate someone saying that to me if I were on strike. I can guarantee you the stagehands feel bad about the show not going on…but they have their families and themselves to think about.
Thanks Nancy for telling the story no one seems to want to hear or tell.
When I heard that NPR story about some kid crying about not seeing the Grinch, I found myself yelling at my radio something very similar to what Nancy wrote.
I walked by the picket lines earlier this evening and have in my hand now a new flyer from Local One. If any of the media have reported this, I have not seen the reports. I quote the flyer:
“Local One worked very hard the weekend of November 17th to find solutions and end the strike affecting so many workers on Broadway and the theater district. We discussed eight items and received nothing in return. THE LEAGUE SAID IT WAS NOT ENOUGH AND WALKED AWAY FROM THE TABLE. (emphasis theirs)
“… Ticket prices have increased approximately 15% over the last five years. …
“Stagehand costs are and have always been less than 9% of the total cost of producing a Broadway show. In these times of record breaking revenues we at Local One believe we should maintain our small slice of the Broadway pie. A middle class life for working people is all we are trying to hold on to.”
A striker said to me that he has been accused by passers by on the street of being paid the salary of six workers and doing the work of just one.
When the corporate media repeat misstatements and misleading ones, this is not surprising.
A break in the media coverage! This from the New York Daily News, which shows the stage hands in a positive light:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2007/11/21/2007-11-21_local_one_stage_union_amasses_5m_strike_.html
Thank you for the article, Nancy!
May I just make one comment?
My husband spends 12 to 16 hours a day on his job — most of them in the back of an aluminum box on wheels hurtling down the interstate trying to keep people alive between hospitals across our state. He might or might not get an actual break for lunch or dinner; it depends on how heavy the transport schedule becomes. He has to spend time outside of work every year keeping his advanced life support skills certified. He doesn’t get workman’s comp when a transport patient wearing heavy perfume triggers an allergic reaction in close quarters. And we won’t get into the whole concept of bodily fluids.
My husband makes about $40,000 a year. That’s with salary differentials for working evenings, overtime, and holiday scheduling. And he’s at the top of his pay scale, with 25 years of experience under his belt. If carrying morbidly obese patients up and down stairs in gurneys disables him — and eventually, it will — he will not get a cushy disability payment other than what we invest in through his employer.
I have very very VERY little sympathy for individuals working six-figure salaries with well-subsidized benefits, who do NOT have the day-to-day responsibilities of saving lives, whining because they might actually have to work a full eight hour day (or more) like the rest of us.
I don’t care who’s making money here, or how dangerous they perceive their jobs to be; as far as I’m concerned, it’s the comfortably well-off battling the extremely well off.
I have no sympathy for either side — just for those who actually were looking forward to seeing a particular show during their time in NYC.
Disney and other big corporations not only work hard to make millions on Broadway, they spend billions on political campaigns and lobbying.
The FCC, made up of persons appointed by the Bush regime and acting to benefit the regime’s corporate owners, is considering important decisions that will have a significant impact on our ability to access information. The agency is not distributing the proposed regulations for public review to allow for adequate comment and public debate.
Facts on Media in America gives specifics about the ownership of news and information by the big entertainment companies like Disney. The Common Cause site also has information about how to take action in this matter.