Actors in ‘Waitress’ Tour Seek to Join Labor Union

A gaggle of actors and stage managers employed by a nonunion touring manufacturing of the musical “Waitress” is searching for union illustration, emboldened by a rising concentrate on working situations within the theater enterprise and by the labor motion’s latest successes in different industries.

Actors’ Fairness Affiliation, a labor union representing 51,000 performers and stage managers, mentioned it had collected signatures from greater than the 30 p.c of employees required to hunt an election, and that on Tuesday it had submitted an election petition to the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, which conducts such elections.

The variety of folks affected is small — there are 22 actors and stage managers employed by the tour, in response to Fairness — however the transfer is important as a result of it’s the first time Fairness has tried to prepare a nonunion tour since an unsuccessful effort twenty years in the past to unionize a touring manufacturing of “The Music Man.” (The union additionally sought a boycott of that manufacturing.)

Union officers mentioned the “Waitress” tour was an apparent place for an organizing marketing campaign due to an unusually clear comparability: There are presently two touring firms of that musical, considered one of which is represented by the union and considered one of which isn’t. The employees within the nonunion tour are being paid about one-third of what the employees within the union firm are making, and have lesser security protections, Fairness mentioned. (The minimal union actor wage is $2,244 per week.)

“We thought it was not proper and never truthful, so we approached them to see in the event that they have been taken with us representing them,” mentioned Stefanie Frey, the union’s director of organizing and mobilization. Frey mentioned that the productions have been so related that a few of the nonunion performers have been requested to show performers within the union manufacturing, and that some have moved from the nonunion manufacturing to the union manufacturing. “It’s an apparent group of individuals getting exploited,” she mentioned.

Jennifer Ardizzone-West, the chief working officer at NETworks Shows, the corporate that’s producing the nonunion “Waitress” tour, declined to supply a right away response, saying, “Till we see the precise submitting, it’s untimely for me to remark.”

Excursions are an vital, and profitable, a part of the Broadway financial system. Throughout the 2018-19 theater season — the final full season earlier than the pandemic — unionized touring exhibits grossed $1.6 billion and have been attended by 18.5 million folks, in response to the Broadway League. Comparable statistics usually are not available for nonunion excursions, however Frey mentioned, “The nonunion tour world has grown during the last 15 years.”

Fairness is within the technique of hiring two extra organizers because it seeks to increase its efforts, in response to a union spokesman, David Levy, who famous latest profitable efforts to prepare some workers at REI, Starbucks and Amazon. The Nationwide Labor Relations Board mentioned final week that the variety of union election petitions has been growing dramatically.

Frey mentioned the lengthy pandemic shutdown of theaters had additionally contributed to a brand new curiosity in organizing within the theater business. “Staff are feeling slightly bit extra of their energy and wish to combat for what they deserve otherwise,” she mentioned.