Negotiations over a new union contract for the striking stagehands at the Philadelphia Theatre Company broke down Sunday, Jan. 20, over what a union rep described as a “punitive” contract offer from the Philadelphia Theatre Company. Mike Barnes, the business agent at IATSE Local 8 in Philadelphia and one of the negotiators with the theatre, said talks broke off after the Philadelphia Theatre Company refused to eliminate the ability of the theatre to hire “alternative,” i.e., non-union, workers to work alongside union ones.