Broadway Production Assistants Seek Recognition As Actors’ Equity Members; Union Files With NLRB – Update

Greg Evans
·3 min read

UPDATED, 5:20 PM: Actors’ Equity Association has filed with the National Labor Relations Board for recognition as the bargaining representative of the production assistants on Broadway and sit-down productions produced by members of The Broadway League.

The union and staffers were hoping that the League would recognize the workers voluntarily, but that hasn’t happened in the week since the initiative was announced.

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“We had high hopes for a swift and collaborative process with The Broadway League and are disappointed to hear they’ve chosen the more contentious path,” said Actors’ Equity Association 3rd Vice President Erin Maureen Koster, who represents stage managers. “That said, these workers are giving a master class in solidarity and it’s honestly our honor to witness that and to continue to support them through every step of the organizing process. One way or another, at the end of this process is the fair contract PAs have long deserved.”

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The NLRB will determine the schedule to hold the unionization election.

“If the Broadway League’s going to make us run an election, we’ll run an election,” union president Kate Shindle said, “and we’ll see them at the bargaining table after the votes are counted.”

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PREVIOUSLY, September 22: Actors’ 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.”

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“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 bargaining unit includes both current PAs working on about ten productions as well as about 100 who have worked on Broadway the last two years.

The unionization would cover PAs who work as part of stage management teams on Broadway and sit-down productions produced by members of The Broadway League.

“Getting a Broadway production up and running is an enormous task,” said Koster, “and the work of Broadway’s stage management teams prior to opening night is fundamental to any show’s success. “Every one of these workers, whether their title is production stage manager, stage manager, assistant stage manager or production assistant, is a skilled professional and essential to the team. And yet, production assistants have stood alone for too long as the only members of these teams without the basic protections of union contracts – without safe and sanitary workplace requirements, without protections against harassment and discrimination, without living wages, without health and pension benefits.”

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