Columbus stage staff Travis Lautenschlager. | Photo provided by Travis Lautenschlager
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Union stage staff workers have spent the past 1,300 days fighting one of the Midwest's largest live entertainment companies for a fair contract. But the workers who put on stage for high-paying live performances night after night continue to lack fair wages, health, and benefits.
Live entertainment is designed to excite and excite audiences. At its best, live music fosters a sense of community created by shared experiences and passionate performances of authentic human emotion. Behind all this is a huge effort by working class people with outstanding and unique skills.
As the curtains come down, the lights come on, and the last audience leaves, a large group of stage staff are still hard at work, circling the venue for the next night's show. Work in the live entertainment industry is demanding by any standard, with days typically starting at 8 a.m. and often extending well past closing time until 3 a.m. or later.
Stage workers often live a temporary lifestyle, taking freelance jobs wherever they can find them. This means following the action on the street and, in some cases, taking any paid job available, no matter how low the pay. Most stage workers in Columbus split 50 to 70 hours a week between multiple employers, making it difficult to accumulate enough hours to qualify for medical and other benefits from a single venue. there is no.
Four years ago, Travis Lautenshager was in the same boat as millions of workers across the country, trying to navigate the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has hit workers in the live entertainment industry particularly hard, who have struggled with venue closures and low demand for in-person events. Travis was working as a sound engineer for an American metal band and was out of town on tour. When he returned, things had changed in Columbus. “All of a sudden, everyone was handing out union cards. I had to get involved.”
PromoWest, the Midwest's largest independent entertainment company, did not offer medical insurance to its stage crew employees, even during a global pandemic. Promowest owns and operates several major venues in Columbus, including Kemba Live!, Newport Music Hall, The Basement and A&R Music Bar, as well as Stage AE in Pittsburgh and Megacorp Pavilion in Newport, Kentucky doing. PromoWest also owns two of his most popular venues in Cincinnati. Music Festival, Bunbury Music Festival, Buckle Up Country Music Festival.
With no health insurance, no retirement benefits, no job security, and wages that lag far behind other employers in the industry, including entertainment giant Live Nation, Promo West's stage employees are on a budget in 2020. Organized and conducted a vote to unionize in the fall of 2018. At least three previous efforts to unionize PromoWest failed, but this vote was a narrow success, and the union was approved by the NLRB on August 3, 2020.
PromoWest immediately filed suit with the NLRB to challenge the election results, but both cases were unsuccessful. The union is legally recognized as Local 12 Chapter of the International Alliance of Theater Stage Employees and Motion Picture Technicians, Artists, and Allied Crafts (IATSE) of the United States and Canada, affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
The union includes all stage design, carpentry, electrical, sound, wardrobe, truck loading and unloading, and other related stage employees employed by PromoWest at its four Columbus locations. It contains. This includes hospitality workers who run errands for artists and respond to food and drink requests.
Perhaps seeing an opportunity for union organizers in a narrow victory, PromoWest turned to another tactic, extending contract negotiations with the union for nearly four years. Given the industry's high turnover rate, successive generations of new stage personnel have been unable to be brought into the unionization struggle as the original organizers' leadership dwindles. In an industry with a traditional culture of freelance work and independent spirit, this can prove difficult. “Kids fresh out of school are willing to work almost for free just to get their foot in the door,” Lautenshager recalled.
These negotiations delays have serious implications for PromoWest workers. Four years after negotiations with their employers, 12 local stage workers are still working without health insurance. Theater work is done under very tight timelines and can be very dangerous. Lautenshager shared the case of a colleague of his who broke his hip after falling off stage equipment. Eventually, he needed a hip replacement and was unable to work. Without the funds raised by Local 12 and his IATSE, he would not have received any help.
Despite this, the people behind Local 12 continue to fight for fair wages, decent work hours, health care, and retirement benefits. They know what live entertainment brings to the Central Ohio community. “Newport is an iconic building with a very long history and we know how much these shows mean to people, but we need their support in this fight. We need the community to know that.”
Lautenshager has staged every type of event imaginable, from horrorcore's chaotic Insane Clown Posse to campaign events for Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. His work has spread throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. This provided a unique opportunity to see how others work. So you can see that we're way behind here. ”
Lautenshager said there has never been a typical day in his 12 years in the industry, but deteriorating working conditions made this fight between the union and PromoWest inevitable. “Sometimes just trying to survive is too much to bear. But if you just lie down and accept it, nothing will change.”
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