The Beasts of Broadway? IATSE Captures the Cold Hard Cash
December 28th 2010 · 0 Comments
Stagehands Extorts Hundreds of Thousands From Theater Goers
Warner Todd Huston | The Union Label
December 28, 2010
If there never was a story that explains how unions are really little else but a criminal extortion racket, the story by James Ahearn in the New Jersey Began Record helps explain it for us. Ahearn’s piece headlined “For Backstage Labor, Rich Rewards,” informs us that some stagehands in New York theater make upwards to $422,000 a year in salary — and that doesn’t include benefits.
These positions are not as highly skilled as brain surgeons, to be sure, yet these guys make hundreds of thousands a year to move chairs, rearrange scenery, raise curtains, and what have you. Why the absurdly outsized pay scale? Threats of strikes shutting down Broadway and its multi-million dollar industry is why.
Ahearn reveals that one mere stagehand makes $422,599 a year, plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation, another makes $290,000, and two carpenters and two electricians made about $400,000 a year with benefits to work the theaters of New York.
Read more @ THE UNION LABEL.
Photo Attribution: Masck
Tags: Broadway, IATSE, The Union Label, Warner Todd Huston
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