Carnegie Hall Opening Night Canceled Due to IATSE/Local One Stagehand Strike

Carnegie Hall's opening night performance, scheduled for Wednesday, October 2, has been cancelled due to a strike by the hall's stagehands, represented by IATSE/Local One. The concert by The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and featuring violinist Joshua Bell and vocalist/double bassist Esperanza Spalding, was scheduled for 7pm. Carnegie Hall representatives say that all future performances will remain on the hall's schedule, and daily updates will be issued pending resolution of the strike.

The strike stems from the union's rejection of a proposed agreement that discusses annual wage and benefits increases as well as continued jurisdiction throughout the Hall's concert venues. Union members want jurisdiction over all of Carnegie Hall's Education Wing, a new space of 24 rooms dedicated to practicing, teaching, and holding events for children, which is scheduled to open in fall 2014. The Hall's management says the new rooms are educational in nature and that the work there can be accomplished by the members of other unions that cost less.

The negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement between Carnegie Hall and its stagehands have been ongoing since mid-2012. The stagehands' most recent agreement expired on August 31, 2012, but both parties had agreed to work under the terms of the previous agreement while negotiations were ongoing.

Clive Gillinson, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, said in a statement, "There is no precedent for this anywhere in New York City. In addition, the activities in the education spaces, including education and community programs offered to the public for free or low cost, have nothing to do with the performance-related work they do in the concert halls. We remain strongly committed to reaching a fair agreement that continues to recognize the value they bring to Carnegie Hall and that also enables us to effectively and sustainably deliver on our education and community mission."

A statement from James J. Claffey, Jr., president of Local One, said in a statement, "Local One has unfortunately been left with no choice but to exercise its legal rights at Carnegie Hall after 13 months of bargaining. Carnegie Hall Corporation has spent or will spend $230 million on its ongoing studio tower renovation, but they have chosen not to appropriately employ our members as we are similarly employed throughout the rest of Carnegie Hall.

"The union has been very respectful and honorable throughout the entire bargaining process. Carnegie Hall Corporation continued for 13 months to fail to acknowledge the traditional and historic work that we perform, and after no significant progress, we found it absolutely necessary to take action to protect the members that we represent."

The New York Times reported that last year's opening-night gala raised nearly $2.7 million. A cocktail reception to be held before the concert and a post-concert dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, for which tickets were sold for $1,000 and $1,500 respectively, was rescheduled for 6pm after the concert was canceled.

In a statement to the Times, Sanford I. Weill, the chairman of the board at Carnegie Hall, said on Wednesday night, "This is our most important day for Carnegie Hall, our biggest fund-raising day, and it's the first time in 122 years that we don't have a performance on opening night."

Carnegie currently employs five stagehands full-time. Its regular stagehands earn much of their money in overtime. The Times' examination of the Hall's 2011 tax return showed that the stagehands worked an average of 60 hours a week and earned between $280,000 and $357,000.