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June 5, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
At Oregon Shakespeare Festival, stagehands want a union
By Don McIntosh
Associate Editor
ASHLAND—A group of 65
stagehands at Oregon Shake-
speare Festival (OSF)—the
famed theater company in Ash-
land, Oregon—will vote June
10 on whether to join Interna-
tional Alliance of Theatrical
Stage Employees (IATSE).
The campaign began in Au-
gust 2014, after managers cut
the pay of several dozen stage
operators and assigned them
new duties, without giving them
any say in that decision. That
prompted stage operator Brian
Rockwell to reach out to IATSE,
which represents theater work-
ers at similar companies.
“The issues are safety, a liv-
ing wage, and having a voice in
the decisions that affect us,”
Rockwell said.
IATSE assigned organizer
Chris “Radar” Bateman to help
workers unionize. Bateman says
OSF stagehand wages are sev-
eral dollars an hour below com-
parable IATSE-represented the-
aters in Portland and Seattle.
With roughly $35 million in
annual revenue, non-profit OSF
is thriving. And it has productive
relationships with several other
groups of union-represented em-
ployees: Actors and stage man-
agers are members of Actors’
Equity; directors and choreogra-
phers are members of Stage Di-
rectors and Choreographers So-
ciety; and costume, sound, light,
set designers are members of
United Scenic Artists, a separate
division of IATSE. But the the-
ater’s production workers are
nonunion, and management
would like to keep it that way.
OSF stagehands came within
two votes of joining IATSE in
June 1999. According to the
Ashland Daily Tidings newspa-
per, the company spent $50,000
to oppose that union effort,
which ended in a 44 to 46 vote.
As the newest IATSE cam-
paign got under way, so did the
campaign to oppose it. At com-
pany-wide and departmental
meetings, OSF artistic director
Bill Rauch, executive director
Cynthia Rider, and production
director Alys Holden urged em-
ployees not to join IATSE.
“There’s a degree to which
they’re taking it personally, I
think,” said wardrobe assistant
Courtney Cunningham, an
IATSE supporter. “They think it
means a failure on their part.”
Union supporters have rejected
that narrative: They say they like
Behind the scenes camaraderie: Backstage on the set of the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival performance of Pericles, cast and crew members
mug for the camera. Back row, from left: technician Rocky Garcia-Flores,
stagehand Jack Buckley, stagehand Brian Rockwell, sound tech Amanda
Sager, actor Cedric Lamar. Front row: wardrobe assistant Katie Sidwell,
actor Barzin Akhavan, and wardrobe assistant Laura Coe.
their managers, and they’ve
maintained a resolutely positive
approach, pushing the hashtag
#proUnionANDprocompany in
online communications.
“We love the company we
work for,” Cunningham said.
“We want a voice in our work,
to make it better, so as employ-
ees we have the best possible
experience.”
Union supporters also say
fears expressed by managers are
overblown. In at least three em-
ployee meetings, Rauch has told
a story about a piece of toast.
Rauch declined through a
spokesperson to speak with the
Labor Press, but several workers
gave an account of the anecdote:
Years ago, during an on-stage
rehearsal at another theater
where stagehands were repre-
sented by IATSE, Rauch wanted
a piece of toast to be moved
from one plate to another, but
had to wait while a stagehand
could be found, because the
union contract said only stage-
hands could handle props.
IATSE supporters inter-
viewed by the Labor Press said
there might be good reasons for
such a rule elsewhere, but they
wouldn’t propose it at OSF,
where workers commonly help
each other out.
“Boil it down, what we’re
asking for is just a voice at the
table with management,” says
sound engineer Amanda Sager.
Sager previously worked with
IATSE in Chicago, and says
when she came to OSF she was
surprised that stagehands at such
a large company weren’t union-
represented. OSF employs
around 500 people in a typical
season. “We want to be able to
support our families and be re-
spected with the rest of our
peers,” Sager said.
Despite the management
push-back, there’s been no sign
of the kind of scorched-earth
anti-union campaign that so of-
ten takes place elsewhere. OSF
management even allowed
workers to use an empty theater
to discuss the union.
But OSF did employ a stan-
dard anti-union tactic after
IATSE asked the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) to
schedule a union election.
IATSE’s petition, filed April 27,
called for a union election among
the “run crew”—the 65 workers
who handle lighting, video and
projections, sound, stage opera-
tions, wardrobe, wig and hair
during the nine months of the
year that plays are being per-
formed. But OSF, represented by
management attorney Rick Lieb-
man of Barran Liebman, filed le-
gal objections, saying the unit
should also include another 125
workers in the scene shop and
costume shop, who work year-
round. Why would OSF man-
agers oppose unionization and
yet propose a larger bargaining
unit? In all likelihood, it’s be-
cause they believed most work-
ers in those units would vote
against the union.
The NLRB rejected OSF’s ar-
guments, ruled that IATSE’s
proposed bargaining unit was
acceptable, and set an election
for June 10.
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