Stagehands and Producers Break Off Talks
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: November 19, 2007
Excerpt from The New York Times
The latest round of talks between the producers’ league and the stagehands’ union broke down last night, leaving no end in sight for the strike that has darkened most of Broadway for nine days.
Soon after the breakdown, the League of American Theaters and Producers announced that it was canceling performances of the 27 shows affected by the strike through Sunday.
No further talks have been scheduled.
The negotiations — which lasted for more than 13 hours Saturday and for 11 hours yesterday — came to a halt a little after 9 p.m.
Bruce Cohen, a spokesman for the stagehands’ union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said in a statement that “producers informed Local 1 that what Local 1 offered was not good enough, and they left.”
Charlotte St. Martin, the executive director of the producers’ league, said: “We presented a comprehensive proposal that responded to the union’s concerns about loss of jobs and earnings and attempted to address our need for some flexibilities in running our business. The union rejected our effort to compromise and continues to require us to hire more people than we need.”
The producers decided to cancel the performances, she said, so that tourists coming to town for the Thanksgiving weekend could make other plans.