LA Actors Dilemma: Minimum Wage or Stipends?

LABOR-A dispute between Los Angeles theater actors and their national union, Actors Equity Association (AEA), went public Monday when an estimated 400 dissenting rank and file performers took to the streets in a march on the union’s North Hollywood district offices. 

The protest came on the eve of a hotly contested, nonbinding referendum vote on AEA’s proposal to scrap rules that allow union actors to work in shows at Los Angeles’ small (99 seats or less), nonprofit stages by essentially waiving their salaries in favor of modest performance stipends. 

Organized by the activist group I Love 99 and led by TV and theater stars Frances Fisher, French Stewart and Steppenwolf Theatre co-founder Jeff Perry, the marchers stretched for blocks along Lankershim Boulevard, waving placards and chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho — 99, it can not go” and “We want change — Not this change.”   

After converging on AEA’s new headquarters building, Fisher and other speakers read letters of support from a host of acting’s biggest names, including Dame Helen Mirren, Al Pacino, Tim Robbins, Ed Harris and Blythe Danner. 

At issue is the union’s newly minted “99-Seat Theatre Agreement” that covers theater with 99 seats or less, which AEA unveiled in a February 6 membership emailing. If adopted, it will replace the Los Angeles 99-Seat Theatre Plan that has governed the city’s small theaters for nearly 30 years. 

The new plan would substitute performance stipends with the prevailing minimum wage, effectively forbid actors from self-producing and cap union membership in the city’s many dues-paying member companies at current levels. 

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“The Equity leadership has a terrible proposal that is poorly thought through,” marcher Rick Steadman told Capital & Main, “and we are trying to get the word out that a “no” vote will bring the leadership back to the table to create a better one.”   

For its part, AEA has framed the debate as a traditional “fair-wage proposal” that is being fought by a handful of “highly successful” actor-producers and theater owners in what amounts to a massive scare campaign.  

“Actors’ Equity is a labor union,” declared an AEA membership email earlier this week. “A labor union represents workers, professionals who have a vocation. The proponents of the status quo would have us believe that the acting they do is somehow purer than a mere vocation. … But as a labor union, we believe that those who work for a commercial enterprise, even a not-for-profit one, should be paid.” 

AEA has set a voting deadline of April 17. Its National Council will make a final decision on April 21.

 

(Bill Raden is a freelance Los Angeles writer. This piece was posted first at capitalandmain.com. Read more articles by Bill Raden )  

-cw

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 26

Pub: Mar 27, 2015