Broadway Production Assistants Seek Recognition As Equity Union Members
deadline.comActors’ Equity Association announced today that it has organized Broadway production assistants, and that the PAs are seeking voluntary recognition from The Broadway League.
If the League – the trade organization representing theater owners and producers – does not recognize the request, the PAs will likely “overwhelmingly vote to unionize,” Equity said. “We are thrilled to support the effort of Broadway’s production assistants to complete the unionization of Broadway’s stage management teams,” said Erin Maureen Koster, 3rd vice president of Actors’ Equity Association, who represents the union’s stage manager members, “and we look forward to achieving the fair and meaningful contract they have long deserved.” Actors’ Equity is the national labor union representing more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers in live theatre.
In a statement provided to Deadline, the League confirmed the request for recognition from Equity and has told the union the League looks “forward to discussing it further with them.” “The Broadway League and our members support the right of employees to lawfully choose a bargaining representative,” the League statement said.
PAs, the union says, are hourly employees who work as part of stage management teams “from pre-production through opening night, doing everything from preparing rehearsal materials to ensuring decisions made during rehearsals are recorded to being extra sets of hands and eyes during complicated technical rehearsals to efficiently running errands that keep the rehearsal productive.” Many PAs, the union continues in the announcement, are early-career stage managers, and PAs “are among the only Broadway workers without current union representation.” The new
Read more on deadline.com