Hollywood Pantages Ushers to Distribute Leaflets Decrying “Poverty Wages” at ‘MJ: The Musical’ Showing

Katie Kilkenny
·4 min read

Amid negotiations with their employer over a first contract, a group of Pantages Theatre ushers is planning to distribute leaflets Thursday night decrying “poverty wages” and calling for “a living wage.”

The workers will be leafletting and holding a banner outside a showing of MJ: The Musical, which begins its Pantages run Wednesday, in an effort to pressure the Nederlander Organization-owned venue to agree to higher rates in ongoing labor talks. “Ushers greet you with a smile, help you to your seats, answer your questions, and make sure you have a wonderful experience at the theater,” the leaflet reads. “But ushers at the Pantages are paid wages that make us ‘Extremely Low Income’ as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

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The message continues, “We love what we do, but we deserve to be paid a Living Wage!” It also exhorts readers to send a statement of support to Pantages Theatre and Broadway in Hollywood president Jeff Loeb or sign an IATSE petition to theater management.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, the Hollywood Pantages Theatre said, “We are very disappointed that the Union would seek to raise these issues as we have been negotiating with the Union for a first contract that will cover our ushers since August. At Nederlander and the Hollywood Pantages Theater we pride ourselves on our long working relationships with organized labor.” The theater continued, “It is always our goal and intent to reach agreements with the unions that represent our employees through good-faith negotiations at the bargaining table. We look forward to getting back to the bargaining table – where all agreements must be made – after the holidays, and we hope the Union agrees.”

Pantages Theatre ushers are represented in collective bargaining by IATSE Local B-192, which also represents theme park employees at Universal Studios Hollywood. According to union president Nicole Miller, the majority of the theater’s ushers currently make the minimum wage in Los Angeles, $16.78 an hour, with a minority making slightly more than that rate. In contract negotiations, the employer has offered a raise to $17.75 an hour, but the union is seeking a higher figure. Though IATSE B-192 will not state the exact figure in its latest proposal, Miller says the group is seeking a “living wage” and cites the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator. That tool finds that a living wage for a single adult with no children in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Anaheim area is $21.53 per hour.

Miller says the union has factored in inflation, cost of living in Los Angeles, usher pay in comparable cities and even the current labor atmosphere into its wage proposal. “We feel that the labor movement has made a lot of strides over the last several months, even the last few years,” Miller says. “We’re in a different time where we’re not accepting the status quo of just these small incremental raises.”

Based on interactions at the bargaining table, the union believes the Pantages Theatre is currently not willing to meet the group at a figure it can agree to. Thursday’s action is intended to change that. “It’s a part of what we do as unions to work together, to act collectively,” says Miller. “The goal is to send a message, it’s not to create hostility with the employer.”

The group of 70-odd ushers first unionized with IATSE Local B-192 in April, after a National Labor Relations Board election found that the majority were in support of the effort. The employer and union have been negotiating a first contract since the summer, an experience that has been productive on some key issues, according to Miller, but hit a snag in the discussions over wages. (Other outstanding items: The union would like to implement holiday pay and augment sick pay.)

The union says it’s prepared to escalate its actions if subsequent negotiation sessions — which are expected to continue after the holidays — do not yield greater gains for the labor group. Says Miller, “We are hoping that we can negotiate to a point where we don’t have to strike and we don’t have to go too much further with it. But if we have to, that is a collective right that we have.”

Dec. 19, 5:25 p.m. Updated with Hollywood Pantages Theatre statement.

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