"IATSE Local One is the oldest entertainment union in the U.S.," declares Robert Score, the organization's recording-corresponding secretary. Founded in 1886, members that year held a torchlight procession down Broadway to Union Square with 25,000 others demanding an eight-hour day and the end of the child labor. Meanwhile, the best-paid stage employees of that era worked for 50 cents a day, and men employed typically put in up to 100 hours per week. Things have gotten considerably better since then…so, on April 17, at the largest ballroom in New York City, The Hilton New York Grand Ballroom, IATSE Local One will celebrate their momentous anniversary with a dinner. Entertainment will be provided by a select group of special guests who will appreciatively perform for the members of a union that make their own live performances go smoothly.
"Membership is coming, of course, but also friends – producers, and some top-notch performers and special guest," Score says. Secured at press time was Alvin Ailey dance members, opera singer Eric Owens and Bebe Neuwirth, who is currently on Broadway playing Morticia in The Addams Family. Others will likely come and perform and pay their respects as well.
"We'll be showing a new, fully-produced historical video that is being put together and we're excited about that," Score says. "We've gathered historical photos and filmed interviews with some of our older members. I'm really looking forward to that."
They will also be handing out five of their highest honors – the Local One Gold Card. Four members and one non-member will be honored as part of the evening's celebrations.
To build on the oldest joke in the business, there appears to be a second answer to the eternal question "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
That would be earning a Local One card. The stagehand union of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) construct, install, maintain, and operate the lighting and sound equipment, the scenery and special effects for audiences attending Broadway shows, concerts at Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, The Metropolitan Opera, and throughout Lincoln Center, and the many entertaining broadcasts from CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and PBS. (And, of course, Carnegie Hall.)
For all of New York's live event needs, they've taken care of lights, sound, video, scenery and rigging, special effects for events big and small (and now they are reaching into neighboring Westchester and Putnam Counties).
Local One was one of the first theatrical unions to have pension, welfare, vacation and annuity funds paid for by management. It has always been a leader in working theater trades. Its apprentice and organizational programs show Local One to be as innovative in its thinking now as its founders were in first creating a union.
Today, Local One is in good shape – as Score says, they've just had a surge and passed the 3,000-member mark. "Recently we had a successful drive at the Joyce Theater – a great theater with a terrific young crew who wanted to become part of Local One." They took them in and met with management and worked it out. "They are ecstatic to become members in time to participate in the 125th anniversary – it's really kind of heart-warming."
Score says he is grateful that within the New York City area, where entertainment-related revenue is second only to Wall Street, unions in general and Local One in particular are appreciated and supported. Scanning the current anti-union landscape nationwide (think Wisconsin), he says attacks on other unions in the country are making unions stronger as it unites so many. "The anti-union faction is well-funded and organized, and have great influence over so much of the media. When it becomes combative, it needs to be addressed."
Otherwise, despite the evolution of entertainment in its long history building on theater and vaudeville to radio, television, cable and beyond, the core of what they do has not changed that much. They still represent the stagehands for fair wages. "There are always going to discussions with management, and has from the beginning," he says. "It always has come down to economics, and that's just the way it's always going to be. But here in New York, so much of what we are a part of generates revenue – not just the hotels where people come to stay to see a Broadway show, but down to the hotdog vendor and souvenir stand."
He adds that as part of the year-long celebration, they will be undergoing forward-thinking initiatives as well, including a re-
design for their website, iatselocalone.org.
