Atlanta Stagehands Fight ‘Labor Pimps’ Pushing Temp Work, Low Wages

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(In These Times) When singers like Beyoncé take the stage, thousands of eyes are glued to her and her alone. But behind the singer at every concert is an army of workers handling everything from lighting to exploding confetti cannons. And while those performances net entertainers and concert venues massive amounts of money, the backstage workers like the ones who made Beyoncé’s live performance July 15 in Atlanta possible can’t say the same. Those employees are now attempting to organize a union, hoping to reverse the trend of eroded wages and benefits for the stagehands and others who make these performances so profitable.

Anger over the mistreatment of entertainment workers in the Atlanta area has been brewing for years, according to Daniel Di Tolla, an organizer with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Entertainment companies have embraced the use of temporary labor contractors for hiring stagehands, electricians, audio technicians, and riggers for the short-term jobs at their concerts, often seeking out the lowest-cost anti-union contractors available.

Some angered workers call these contractors “labor pimps,” Di Tolla says, because they hoard the profits from the lucrative concerts while many employees are paid wages that are sometimes half that of a unionized stagehand crew. The workers are now engaged in a fight to unionize what workers say is one of the prime offenders of this business model, a company called Crew One Productions.

Billing itself as “the largest tech staffing source in the Southeast,” Crew One has grown into a major force in the music industry in the region and is undermining IATSE’s traditional membership base, Di Tolla says. The union has a longstanding presence in Atlanta—IATSE Local 927 currently represents stage workers at the Atlanta Civic Center, the Fox Theater and elsewhere—but non-union staffing agencies have come to dominate the pop music concerts sector in Atlanta. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17498/atlanta_stagehands_fight_labor_pimps_pushing_temp_work_low_wages

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