Actors on ‘The Waiter’ Tour Want to Join the Labor Union


A group of actors and stage managers employed by a company. non-union tour production The director of the musical “The Waiter” seeks union representation, encouraged by a growing focus on working conditions in the theater sector and the recent successes of the labor movement in other industries.

The Actors’ Equity Association, a labor union representing 51,000 artists and stage managers, said it had collected signatures from more than 30 percent of the workers required to vote and submitted an election petition to the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday. executes such selections.

The number of people affected is small—there are 22 actors and stage managers employed by the tour, according to Equity—but the move is important because Equity is attempting to hold a non-reunion tour for the first time since a failed effort two decades ago. To syndicate a traveling production of “The Music Man”. (The union also wanted boycott of this production.)

Union officials said the “The Waiter” tour was an obvious place for an organizing campaign because of an unusually clear comparison: Currently, this musical has two tour companies, one represented by the union and one not. Equity said workers in the non-union tour were paid about a third of workers at the union company and had less security protections. (The minimum union player salary is $2,244 per week.)

“We thought that wasn’t right or fair, so we approached them to see if they were interested in us representing them,” said Stefanie Frey, the union’s director of organizing and mobilization. Frey said that the productions were so similar to each other that some non-union performers were asked to give lectures to performers in syndicated production, while others switched from non-union production to syndicated production. “A group of exploited people is obvious,” she said.

Jennifer Ardizzone-West, chief operating officer of NETworks Presentations, which produced the non-union “Waitress” tour, said, “It’s too early to comment until we see the actual submission. ”

Tours are an important and lucrative part of the Broadway economy. During the 2018-19 theater season – the last full season before the pandemic – syndicated touring shows grossed $1.6 billion and 18.5 million people attended, according to the Broadway League. Similar statistics for non-merger tours are not readily available, but “The world of non-merger tours has grown over the past 15 years,” Frey said.

According to a union spokesman, David Levy, Equity is in the process of hiring two additional organizers as it looks to expand its efforts. REI, Starbucks and Amazon. The National Labor Relations Board said last week that the number of union election petitions has increased. increasing dramatically.

Frey said the long-term closure of theaters due to the pandemic has also contributed to a new interest in organizing in the theater industry. “The workers feel their power a little more and they want to fight differently for what they deserve,” he said.



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