Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1058399
THE ARTISAN FALL 2018 • 29 by Randy SayeR Assistant to the Business Representative I.A.T.S.E. Local 706 Theme Park, Theater & Broadcast Television News SHOW NEWS For the first time in forever… Orange County has a living wage measure! Unite Here Local 11 (hotel workers) and UFCW Local 324 (merchandise workers), both locals within our 'Coalition of Resort Labor Unions' (CRLU), have worked tirelessly over the past six months to place the 'Anaheim Resort Workers Living Wage Measure L' on the November ballot. 20,000 signatures were gathered back in May; in June, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders sent CEO Bob Iger a leer signed by 22 other U.S. senators and members of Congress urging Disney to "stop paying starvation wages"; volunteers began going door-to-door, ringing doorbells and talking to Anaheim voters about the proposed new law; 300+ local Anaheim businesses signed on to support the measure— that Disney called "a job killer: helps a few, hurts so many!" The new law guarantees all Resort employees a $15 minimum 'living wage' if working for an employer who receives Anaheim City subsidies. Disneyland Resort received nearly $1 billion-with-a-B in local city tax subsidies over the past decade while 85 percent of its cast members were paid less than $15/hour. This goes into effect January 1, 2019, and all Disney employees in Anaheim will now earn a wage $3 more per hour than the California Minimum Wage ($12/hour) and it will go up each year. This directly affects our own Theme Park hair styl- ists who hired in within the past few years… I am so proud of the work of this coalition, and all our members who have supported our efforts! I'll see you at the rally, at the negotiating table or I'll see you in the wings! Randy Sayer Regional Theater News Negotiations with San Diego Opera and The Old Globe in San Diego continue as we speak, and two dozen of our members worked on one dozen Broadway San Diego pro- ductions this year. Segerstrom Center for the Arts provided employment on all nine productions presented in 2018. We negotiated a two-year agreement with Opera Parallèle, and a five-year agreement with San Francisco Opera. We negotiated ten (10!) Single Signatory productions for the SHN theatres in San Francisco: Aladdin, A Bronx Tale, Bat Out of Hell, The Book of Mormon, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, On Your Feet!, The Phantom of the Opera, School of Rock and Waitress, and had three productions under our new term agree- ment at the Curran Theatre: Head Over Pink Contract/ Yellow Card Shows We currently have sixty-three (63!) IATSE Broadway shows and Yellow Card attractions touring across the United States; this beats all previous years! Yolanda Pollock just completed the limited pre-Broadway tour of Ain't Too Proud (recently at the Ahmanson; an amazing production!) and is doing a two-month stint with Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Tim Bohle is celebrating Christmas in San Francisco department heading Bat Out of Hell and Patrice Madrigal is touring with the Hello, Dolly! revival —as Betty Buckley's personal hair stylist! All of these shows provide excellent wages and benefits for our 40 'Pink Contract' members—not to mention all of the "local hires" who work these shows throughout California! All touring Yellow Card production information may be viewed by visiting the IATSE website at www.iatse.net, go to 'Member Resources,' then 'Yellow Card Shows.' Heels (pre-Broad- way), Soft Power and Dear Evan Hansen. We staged an 'infor- mational picket' in front of the Orpheum Theatre for the one produc- tion that refused to sign—The Color Purple, passed out purple hand-bills and flyers to the audience attending—and got signed agreements with the next two productions that followed, with the same producers! All in all, it was a very good year for regional theater in California.