THEATER producers and stagehands yester day appeared to be on the verge of settling a 19-day strike that has cost Broadway – and the city – millions of dollars.
A remaining sticking point, sources told The Post, is the size of the wage increase for stagehands, who walked off the job Nov. 10, shutting down such money-minting musicals as “Wicked,” “Jersey Boys,” “The Lion King” and “Chicago.”
“It’s down to money and one or two work-rule issues,” one source said. “But there is definitely a deal here.”
Said another source: “Everybody is confident we can finally get this done.”
The last round of negotiations ended early Tuesday morning, with both sides “punch-drunk” after nearly 13 hours of bargaining and number-crunching, a source said. Talks were set to resume at 10 a.m. today. If a deal is struck, Broadway could be open for business again on Thursday night.
Last month, the producers offered the stagehands what they believed was a substantial raise – including a 16.5 percent increase over five years for the union’s senior members. But the offer came with a big demand: the elimination of archaic work rules that, the producers charged, created a culture of featherbedding.
As the strike dragged on, wiping out nearly $30 million in gross box-office receipts over the Thanksgiving weekend, the producers tempered their zeal to wipe out all the old work rules. As a result, they no longer believe the stagehands should get quite so fat a raise.
But the stagehands – who say they’ve agreed to changes in work rules that could lead to the elimination of some jobs – still want that money. They also argue that, because they were forced to strike by the producers’ “union-busting” attitude, their adversaries should feel a little pain.
“Their strategy was designed to put us on streets,” a labor source says. “In all labor negotiations, there is a price to pay for that.”
Scoffs a producer: “We put them on the street? It was their union head that authorized the strike.”
Despite such sniping, both sides are optimistic about a deal.
“We’ve got more flexibility, though we’ll probably still have to carry some guys who don’t do very much,” one producer says.