The strike by stagehands on Broadway continued into its third day with both sides flinging barbs at the other.
Pickets were set up Saturday morning at theatres in the Times Square area of New York City, shutting down 27 plays and musicals after talks broke off Nov. 8 between Local One and the League of Theatres and Producers.
Stagehands picket the Broadway musical Les Miserables on Saturday. More than two dozen plays and musicals are shut down.
(Diane Bondareff/ Associated Press)
"We want respect at the table," said James J. Claffey Jr., president of Local One, on Sunday. "If there's no respect, they will not see Local One at the table. The lack of respect is something we are not going to deal with."
That remark triggered outrage from the producers.
"[The union] refused to budge on nearly every issue, protecting wasteful, costly and indefensible rules that are embedded like dead weights in contracts so obscure and old that no one truly remembers how, when or why they were introduced," shot back Charlotte St. Martin, the league's executive director.
"The union wants you to believe they are the victims, the little guys."
According to St. Martin, the average yearly earnings of a stage hand, in terms of salary and benefits, is more than $150,000 US.
The union says that is not the issue.
"Theatre owners and producers are demanding a 38 per cent cut in our jobs and wages," said a statement released by Local One. "Broadway is a billion dollar a year industry and has never been more profitable than now."
The two sides negotiated for three months but talks broke off over the issue of staffing requirements.
The producers want more flexibility in the number of people assigned to certain jobs.
"We simply don't want to be compelled to hire more workers than needed and pay them when there is no work for them to do," St. Martin said last week.
The stagehands say they fought hard for what they have and want something in return.
"We are being attacked," Claffey said over the weekend. "We're fighting for our lives."
Off-Broadway productions are still going on and eight shows, which have different contracts or are staged at nonprofit theatres, have continued: Young Frankenstein, Mary Poppins, Xanadu, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Mauritius, Pygmalion, The Ritz and Cymbeline.
No new negotiations have been scheduled. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg again offered his assistance in the negotiations on Sunday, saying "the city will do everything it can to help."
With files from the Associated PressRelated
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