Producers, Stagehands Review Offers

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After a month of contract negotiations, members of a union that represents Broadway stagehands and the shows’ producers are reevaluating the situation between reviewing final offers, sources close to the talks say.

Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical State Employees, which represents 500 stagehands in the city, and the League of American Theaters and Producers, which represents two major theater owners, Jujamcyn and Shubert, each submitted what they said were final offers Tuesday evening. While no agreement has been struck, sources from both sides say they are open to meeting again.

Both the union and the trade group are seeking to avoid a lockout, sources with the parties said. Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that the city arranged for an independent party to help negotiations in 2003, when the industry last faced a strike. “I will do anything I can to help them get together and come to a fair settlement. Broadway is very important to our economy,” he said.

The union and the league are at odds over whether stagehands should be paid for the work they physically do, as the league argues, or whether a theater can hire stagehands daily regardless of whether work is available.

“The league’s purpose is to modernize a contract,” the league’s executive director, Charlotte St. Martin, said of the producers’ offer. “It is a compromise that preserves many contract provisions Local One sought to protect but at the same time liberalizes some archaic work rules.”

The president of Local One, James Claffey Jr., said a final offer “offered imaginative solutions.” “Local One is open to exchanges on work rules and other areas, but would not make a concessionary agreement of any kind. Local One will not accept cuts,” Mr. Claffey said.


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